Alternate Beginnings of an Uzumaki
by Racke
Summary: Unfinished stories of Naruto, some interesting ideas, some not-so-interesting ideas. For Want of a Nail, Time-travel, and AUs.
1. Collection Chapter

Naruto Collection Chapter

Carved From Stone

Emperor Naruto

Just Another Game

Phobia

Safety Blanket

Counter Guardian

A Hero and a God

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Story: [Carved From Stone]

Genre: Drama

Summary: Naruto searches the graveyard for his family name.

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Naruto stared at the stone that carried his name.

'Uzumaki', it said.

It'd taken him a long time to find it. He'd searched the entire graveyard , pebble by pebble. But he had found it in the end.

Orphans didn't have last names. Not really.

Some did, of course, remembered by relatives or others, but the true orphans, those who'd simply appeared one day, they didn't have last names.

Uzumaki Naruto. That was his name. He wasn't sure how he'd gotten it, why it'd mattered to someone that he knew that he was 'Uzumaki', but no matter who he'd asked, none had answered him.

Still, it mattered to him.

He didn't really have anyone. In fact, he often found himself envying the orphans who simply lacked names. The orphans who weren't ignored, not truly.

But he couldn't let go of his name, it was part of him, it was important to him, it proved that he hadn't simply appeared. He'd been _born_. He'd had _parents_. Once.

Naruto didn't know why they weren't there anymore. Perhaps they'd hated him too and left, perhaps they'd died, perhaps they just weren't there at the moment, like ninja on some awesome mission that would come home one day.

He sat down in front of the stone, looking at the carved name and numbers.

What year was it now? How long ago since this Uzumaki had died? Had they been related to him? Had they been related to his parents? Did they simply share a name?

So many questions that the stone would never answer.

He'd found an Uzumaki in the graveyard. He had a name.

It was odd, to find kinship to a rock.

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto." He paused, his voice trembling. "Are we family?"

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Story: [Emperor Naruto]

Genre: Adventure

Summary: Naruto doesn't dream of becoming Hokage. He wants to rule the world.

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An eight year old Naruto stared at the giant map of the Elemental Nations with awe.

How could the world be that _big_?

Konoha was really large, it took forever to run from one side of the Village to another, but it was just a tiny pinprick on a map that covered an entire wall.

Hell, it'd taken him a really, really long time just to find it amongst all the other pinpricks that covered the map.

Naruto had always wanted to be Hokage, to be acknowledged by everyone. But what use was Hokage, against the immensity of the world? Even if he became the greatest Hokage ever, why would the rest of the world acknowledge him?

Shivering involuntary at the thought of reaching his goal, only to realize that he was still hated by everyone, Naruto continued to let his eyes trace over the enormous countries that covered most of the map.

Fire was pretty big, he tried to explain to himself, and everyone knew that the best ninja ever in Fire was the Hokage, right?

For some reason though, he found most of his arguments on the awesomeness of the Hokage falling a bit flat as he watched the gigantic world. And as his arguments began to fail, his stomach was slowly winding itself into a heavy knot.

What if he was never going to be acknowledged? What if everyone would hate him always? What if there was nothing he could do?

Then, with a sudden spark of memory, he recalled Iruka once mentioning something about someone uniting several nations and declaring himself Emperor.

Naruto didn't really understand how you could unite nations, but he supposed that with a big enough eraser, and a lot of time, he could probably do that too – it shouldn't be that hard to simply erase the lines separating the nations on the map.

Naruto blinked. Emperor. He could be an Emperor.

Everyone would have to acknowledge him if he was an Emperor, because then he'd rule over _everything_.

Armed with this newfound realization, Naruto grinned happily and took off for Ichiraku's, he could tell everyone what an awesome idea he'd had!

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Naruto flinched a bit as the old man Hokage slowly and calmly berated him for his new ambition.

Though he'd clearly been amused by his 'eraser-idea' for a way to unite the world, the Hokage had quickly corrected him, and explained why an Emperor was not something that anyone should want to be.

Because to unite nations under one rule would mean war. And with war came suffering and death. And from that grew hatred, until the Emperor was dragged off his throne by his own people.

Naruto was horrified.

Not only was Emperor not a nice thing to be and had made the usually jovial old man uncomfortably stern, but it was apparently impossible to become since nobody would _let_ anyone become Emperor.

Once the old man stopped his lecture, Naruto nodded sullenly when he was asked to give up on his dream, suppressing the tears that were burning at the corners of his eyes. Because he would _never_ be acknowledged, and the one who'd told him that was the old man who he thought of as a grandfather of sorts.

Well, obviously, the old man hadn't used those words. But if Naruto couldn't become Emperor, it wouldn't matter what he did, he would never be acknowledged by the world.

As Naruto finally made his way home, staring at the ground as he walked, trying to ignore the glares of those surrounding him, he wondered if there wasn't some way of getting around what the Hokage had told him and become Emperor anyway.

Naruto would've most likely surrendered to the Hokage's words, had he not happened upon two people discussing something on his way home that day.

It wasn't an unusual discussion, though it was rarely spoken of since it was known by everyone.

The discussion was about the Hidden Villages scattered across the world, and most assuredly, of the greatest Hidden Village of them all, Konoha. Because surely Konoha could take over any other Village without problem, since it was the strongest one.

And just like that, Naruto learned of small steps.

It was an idea that was slowly coming into completion as it turned around inside his head.

The Hokage ruled over Konoha, and most importantly, over it's armies. Konoha was the strongest of all the other Villages, and ninjas were way stronger than any bunch of mercenaries that the rest of the world could produce.

So, if he became Hokage, he could take over other countries, through that war-thing that the old man had been going on about.

Naruto twitched. War. Right, that wasn't a good thing. War lead to people dying, and sad people, and angry people.

Naruto knew about angry people, he met lots of them all the time.

It would be bad to make more of those, there were too many around as it was.

But, without war, how could he become Emperor? An Emperor needed to – what had the old man called it? – 'conquer' other nations and force them to join him.

Naruto frowned. This was a dilemma.

Maybe he could just talk to them and they'd give him the countries? No, nobody ever gave him anything. He would have to use that war-thing to become Emperor.

He didn't want to make war, but being Emperor was his only chance of being acknowledged, and he couldn't just give up on that. Not without at least trying.

But to make war he needed an army. And Konoha had an army. So maybe he could become Hokage, and then use that army and conquer the world.

Yes, that sounded like a good plan. But he could never tell anyone, because nobody would let him become Hokage if they thought he'd try to become _Emperor_. It would be tough, he'd need to lie to everyone about his dream.

Naruto blinked at that last thought. No he didn't. He could say that he wanted to be Hokage. The greatest Hokage ever. Because that would be the starting point. From there, he could achieve his _real_ dream, but being Hokage was still a goal.

And so Naruto learned of misdirection and deceit.

Naruto grinned. He was going to be Emperor!

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Story: [Just Another Game]

Genre: Adventure

Summary: Naruto has been trapped in the videogame that was his life for a long time now.

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Naruto glared at the monster in front of him.

He'd lost count of how many of its kind he'd annihilated over the last few hours. He spat out a bit of blood and sliced this one open too.

There could be no stopping. He wasn't allowed to stand still.

He dodged out of the way as another monster appeared, seemingly without regard for its own safety as it charged at him in the same manner that the last one he'd killed had. Gritting his teeth, he let loose a kunai to pierce the back of its head before it could turn around to follow him. It fell.

Kyuubi had shut up about the mindless massacre ages ago, either too confused or too busy healing his wounds to bother him.

He'd given up on things like thoughts. Thoughts were distractions. Distractions killed you. He couldn't afford to die. Not yet. He still had things to do. He wouldn't fall to some nameless monsters.

One got close enough to rake him across his arm, further shredding his jacket to the point where Naruto knew that he'd never be able to salvage it. He kicked the monster in the knee, and as it fell he grabbed its head, before smashing it down into the ground with a sickening thud.

He'd become one with the battle, and everything seemed to be covered in a haze of greyish red.

The red was probably all the blood that was by now covering virtually every surface, not to mention himself. He probably looked as if he'd taken a dip in a river of blood.

He sidestepped a sword, using the momentum to kick another one in the throat. Its gasps for breath was quickly silenced as one of its allies trampled it in its hurry to gut him. It failed, receiving a kunai through the eye for its efforts.

He wasn't sure why he was there, why he was fighting these monsters, he would probably have a hard time answering if someone asked him his name, and that wasn't only because it felt as if his throat was on fire. It was a state of mind, a way of being.

Naruto was death. He was destruction. He was king.

He slipped through a swipe that should've removed his head, and stabbed upwards into the monster's brain through its throat. Yanking the kunai free just in time to block a sword, Naruto spun and launched himself into the air, breaking a monster's neck with a roundhouse kick, using the leverage to twist himself away from another set of claws, he slit this one's throat.

Only killing blows. Any other blow would be too much effort. He'd been fighting for too long to play with prey. All his hits must kill. All his attacks must hit. All his motions must be just enough to leave them dead.

He'd never felt such heartfelt admiration for Uchiha Itachi. There was a man who fought like death. No wasted movements, just clinical precision and absolute defeat for all who opposed him. But he couldn't afford to simply admire the man. He had to surpass him. He had to spread death with every movement, because not even Naruto with his unrivaled stamina could continue this fight indefinitely.

Dodging out of the way of a splatter of blood that would've hindered his sight, Naruto stooped down low and grabbed hold of a previously thrown kunai, yanking it out of the monster's skull where it'd lodged, he spun and stabbed it into another's spine.

Naruto wasn't sure if they were getting stronger or if he was getting worn down, either way, it was becoming difficult to stay one step ahead.

Thankfully, it wouldn't be too much longer. Soon they would stop. Soon he would be finished. Soon.

He couldn't afford to think like that. Longing was a distraction. Relief was a distraction. Distraction was death.

Fangs stretched towards him, he stabbed his kunai into its face.

He wished he still had his sword, then he wouldn't have to smell the horrible smell that the monster called breath. He would've been able to keep his distance. But the blade had broken after the first hour, too many bones slowly wearing it down until it'd snapped in one of their necks.

Naruto deflected something akin to senbon that one of them spit out, before calmly returning fire and burying a kunai through the roof of its mouth.

Naruto paused as he readied himself for kicking the monster behind him, confused.

There wasn't any monster behind him.

How peculiar.

Naruto blinked, his eyes moving to the gigantic shape some distance away, the shape that his very blood screamed desperately for him to flee from.

Ah, it was that time.

He'd survived them. Now he had to deal with this. Lovely.

He suppressed the pride he felt for making it this far, he still couldn't afford to be distracted, lest he risk failing. And failure was death.

The thing growled menacingly.

Naruto felt his lips twitch upwards into a bloody smile. Intimidation wouldn't work on him. It didn't matter if the one standing in front of him was Neji, the Kyuubi, the old man Hokage, or even the legendary Juubi. He would kill it. Then he would move on.

Switching the grip on his kunai, Naruto charged.

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Naruto stared up at the ceiling of his bedroom.

He'd won.

He'd defeated the absolute enemy.

He paused.

What was he supposed to aim for now?

The Akatsuki was still out there. Madara was still running rampant in his vengeance. Orochimaru was still experimenting on the innocent.

But he wasn't allowed to defeat them.

If he tried, the council would demand his execution, stating him to be too powerful, too unpredictable, too uncontrollable.

He'd tried to reason with them, many times. It never changed anything. Even when he'd gotten them to agree, they tried to assassinate him, and when he survived they falsified evidence of his desertion and declared him a missing-nin.

They were actually quite good at making his life miserable, you almost had to admire the sheer tenacity that they showed.

Naruto sighed.

Perhaps he could just quit? Stop being a ninja, learn how to be a ramen chef. That didn't sound too bad, did it?

But then what of Konoha? What of Pein? What of Madara? What of Orochimaru? What of the Rookie Nine and the chunin exams?

He couldn't just leave. His responsibilities were too heavy.

A shame he could never convince himself that they would be able to handle it. He knew that they didn't stand a chance against the forces of their destruction. Damn it all.

"What have I ever done to deserve this?" He muttered to himself.

He didn't really want to fight, he didn't really want to be the hero, not since he'd grown up a bit, he just wanted everyone to be happy. So why did he have to watch everyone he cared for fall into despair, time and time again? Couldn't they at least have found something for him with which to distract himself?

Well, they _had_. Problem was that he was finished with it. He'd defeated the ultimate enemy. The secret monster hidden away in the depths of the world had been slain by his hand. And nobody would ever know of it. Just the way he wanted it to be.

Sighing softly to himself, Naruto looked at his prize once again.

A skull mask, and a red ring.

Well, actually, in all honesty, he'd gotten the ring because he'd won. He'd gotten the mask because of the way he'd won.

Apparently, the efficient style with which he'd fought for hours upon hours had earned him the _Mask of Hassan Sabbah_. It looked like a skull, and if he'd read the description correctly, it should hide his identity.

And if this game had taught him anything, it was that when it told him that it would do something it did it. So, it was fully possible that he might equip the mask in front of someone's eyes and they'd never question where 'Naruto' had gone, or where this masked stranger had come from. It wouldn't hide him though, and it was merely as if he was a completely different person to all those watching, meaning that he could still get himself into trouble.

The ring was called _Heaven's Feel_ and was supposed to help dealing with weapons somehow. Naruto didn't really understand it, but he supposed that he'd have to experiment to figure it out anyways.

Grumbling to himself about items with crappy descriptions, Naruto sat up and saved the game. It never hurt to have a save close by whenever you decided to experiment with new equipment. He could still remember the time he'd finally located a cheat code.

It'd been a really useful cheat code, but unfortunately it also provided a negative score of around a million points. Basically, if you ever used the cheat, you'd finish the game with a negative score, no matter how far out of your way you went. Naruto had decided not to cheat after that. Useful though it was, it wasn't as if he couldn't do without it.

Equipping both the mask and the ring, Naruto walked out through the door.

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Naruto loved his Heaven's Feel. It was quite possibly the most wonderful thing anyone had ever given him. Even if he'd had to slaughter countless monsters before being fighting against a boss on Juubi's level before the game had 'given' it to him.

Regardless, the crimson ring always brought a big grin to Naruto's face.

He could summon weapons.

That didn't really sound especially cool unless you'd based your style around launching weaponry at your opponents – like Tenten had – until you actually realized what it _meant_. Firstly, he'd never run out of weapons, and he'd never have to buy any new ones, or sharpen any old ones. Secondly, he could never truly be disarmed. And thirdly, and most importantly, he could summon _weapons_. The kind of weapons that would've probably made Tenten drool.

Unfortunately, he had to buy the more unique ones first. He had saved enough points to buy quite a few of them, but it always made him wary.

Still, who could resist a lance that always pierced the heart, a chain that could bind the divine, a sword capable of granting three miracles? The list went on, each one more awe-inspiring than the last.

Some of them were obviously cursed, obviously evil, obviously thirsting for the blood of those living. Others were noble, and some were merely useful.

Personally though, there was one weapon that terrified Naruto beyond all others. It wasn't pointy thorns or wicked edges that caused his terror. No, it was simply the way it _felt_. Like it longed for nothing more than to beat him within an inch of his life and then leave him be, just so that it could do it again the moment he recovered from his injuries.

The wooden sword reminded him a lot of Sakura when someone really pissed her off. The ring called it the _Torashinai_, and the name sent shivers down Naruto's spine as he swore never to use it, no matter how close to victory. Nobody deserved having such a weapon turned against them. Not even Madara.

Still, it took a huge amount of chakra to actually call upon one of the more awe-inspiring weapons in his new arsenal, and it took even more in order to activate one, so he doubted that he'd be trying to learn how to wield a spear anytime soon. It just wasn't worth the effort.

Much easier to use regular weapons. Besides, it wasn't as if he really needed anything more special than a kunai. Though he had a certain love for the sword he'd lost when working his way through the monsters, he'd still managed to beat the Final Boss without it.

Speaking of his sword, he could actually summon it. Despite it having been very much broken, he could summon it in peak condition. Every time.

He really really _really_ loved his Heaven's Feel.

The mask wasn't bad, but despite how useful and comfortable anonymity could be, Naruto just couldn't deny that he instinctively enjoyed the explosions of summon-able explosive tags more.

He grinned.

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Story: [Phobia]

Genre: Drama

Summary: A female Naruto that's developed a phobia for men, reflecting on her life.

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It doesn't take a lot for fear to be established.

The bravest of men can run away screaming in terror as he's faced with a spider. It depends on the man, on his experiences, on his will to overcome his fear.

But if fear can be overcome, why do we feel it at all? Simple, we feel fear because at some point it was needed for us to survive.

The man who doesn't fear the poisonous snake will end up bitten, same with the poisonous spider. The man who fears heights would avoid jumping from a cliff. Fear is a survival instinct, and even if it's corrupted by a man who trembles in terror at the sight of a spider, it was first realized as the spider posing a threat of some manner.

Phobias are the worst of the fears. They are what is born when fear is given free reign. The fear that taints your mind until you begin to justify it being there.

Naruto understood fears very well.

After all, the Hokage had hoped that logic would be enough to quell the phobia of a six year old girl.

It hadn't been.

Naruto didn't fear spiders, she didn't love them either, but she accepted that they shared space. She didn't fear snakes either, though she tried to keep a healthy distance since she was never sure which ones were poisonous. Naruto didn't fear heights, in fact, she quite enjoyed heights, even if she'd learned to be careful when climbing.

She didn't fear any of these things that made those around her shudder.

But the Hokage hadn't been able to get close enough to touch her without her flinching, trembling unmoving under his hand, since she'd been six.

Naruto had a phobia for men.

There were some she tried to get over it for, like the Hokage, or Teuchi, but she hadn't been able to get close to them for years now. Teuchi didn't mind, leaving Ayame to serve her ramen, whilst he stayed as far away as possible, to keep her comfortable. The Hokage, well, he certainly tried.

It was sad, seeing the face of the man who she considered as something of an honorary grandfather whenever she flinched away from his touch. That's why she tried to keep it hidden. Tried to keep it from being noticed.

She'd always been loud. Cheerful.

But when her phobia started, it suddenly became much harder to face the music. So much harder to stand up and fight the villagers' frequent glares.

She'd failed. Curling in on herself, she'd faded into the background, hoping that none would notice her fear.

Of course, she was nothing if not a great actress, and so far she was just thought of as unusually shy, a bit withdrawn, and still a firm believer that 'boys were icky'.

Some knew. Like the Hokage, Teuchi and Ayame. But most would never realize why, after that one time when she'd run into a couple of drunks in an alley, she wouldn't allow any male close.

There hadn't been anything more than harsh words, a bit of fist waving in her general direction from where they'd stood, and in the dark alley, faced with those men, her fear had started.

It'd taken her some time before she realized that the flinches whenever a man passed by wasn't letting up, wasn't stopping.

She supposed that a ninja with a phobia for men was really quite useless, but it was her goal. It was the only thing she'd ever had to hold on to, and even if she'd fail, she needed to at least _try_.

Thus, she tried.

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Story: [Safety Blanket]

Genre: Drama/Horror

Summary: We all have a breaking point, and once it's been reached things will never be the same.

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We all have our safety blankets. Things that make us feel that even when everything you touch turns to shit, that there will be a tomorrow.

These safety blankets are the things keeping you from finally snapping and doing whatever.

To some, they're actual blankets – items that they just can't leave behind – to others they're friends or family, to some they're that chocolate bar at the end of the day, and to others they're the ability to let out some steam.

It shouldn't have surprised them. It really shouldn't. But even if you know that we all have our own personal safety blankets, how in the world can you be certain of what they are?

In much the same way as people learn to appreciate something only once they realize they can't have it, so does also most people think of their safety blankets. They can tell their friends that it's that one chocolate bar a day keeping the madness at bay, when in reality it's the picture of that retarded-looking puppy that you've kept at your desk since you were five years old.

We don't analyze ourselves, it's a waste of time. We understand enough of how we work in order to keep on working, and that's really all that matters to most of us.

So, when that safety blanket that you never truly understood was there disappears... well, things might go a bit overboard.

Staring blankly ahead, Naruto realized something.

A line had been crossed.

He had not been the one to cross it, and he wasn't truly sure that those who had understood that that had been what they were doing. But nonetheless, a line had been crossed.

Naruto had never had a lot of things to cling to. There was the old man Hokage, Ichiraku's ramen, his really cool goggles, Gama-chan, his signature orange jumpsuit, and pranks. These were the things of importance in Uzumaki Naruto's life.

They weren't equally important, the old man Hokage and Ichirakus ramen was far over the top of the others, but the rest of what made him himself was precious to him as well.

Still, the thought that this had been his great safety blanket over all these years was quite a surprise. He still cared greatly for all the other things and would mourn losing them to varying degrees, but whilst they played a part in making him who he was, they were apparently not what had been keeping him sane, despite his own beliefs.

It had been such a silly thing. Once, when he'd first gotten his own apartment, he'd accidentally spilled some milk all over the small balcony. The next morning he'd stumbled upon a stray cat who'd apparently decided not to let it go to waste.

He didn't exactly like cats, and he didn't really want a pet. But for some reason, ever since that day he would leave out a plate of milk in the morning, and be visited by the cat that was making sure that it didn't go to waste.

It'd become so engrained in his routine that even now he was watching the plate of milk with a sort of hollow calm.

Some kids had decided that the cat that hung around the demon-brat was a perfectly viable target of their cruelty. He hadn't sure what he was supposed to do with the broken form that he'd scooped up with trembling hands, he hadn't been able to simply leave it and go ask. He couldn't bring himself to leave it alone. But he'd heard somewhere that you were supposed to bury the dead.

He wasn't sure if that was true, but it'd seemed like a good direction. So, he'd spent several hours digging a hole until he was satisfied. And then he'd gently lowered down the cold broken form of the stray cat who didn't want to let milk go to waste into the hole, before finally covering it with earth.

He'd found a rock to place over the grave. Again, he wasn't sure if that was how you did these things, but it'd seemed like the right thing to do. So he'd placed that rock on its grave, and then he'd stared blankly at it until the night swallowed its outline in darkness.

Then he'd gotten to his feet, and walked home.

He wasn't sure how long it'd been since he'd eaten. He wasn't sure how long he'd been able to sleep. But now, as a new day emerged, he sat there, watching a plate filled with milk.

And that's when it happened.

Uzumaki Naruto finally snapped.

A howl tore through Konoha, a howl of loneliness and sorrow, guilt and regret, frustration and anger, longing and horror.

It was the sound of a broken heart.

All around Konoha people looked up, startled at the heart-wrenching noise so early in the morning.

Some would simply shrug and return to what they were doing, continuing their days as planned, despite the unsettling feeling in their stomach that just wanted to flee and never look back.

Some would recognize the voice that carried that howl, and laugh at the heart-break of a demon, celebrating in the misery of a child, even as their own smiles felt oddly pasted on.

Some would startle awake in horrified panic and rush out to see what could possibly have caused such a noise.

Some would recognize the voice that carried that howl, and feel the color drain from their faces as they rushed towards its source.

None would make it.

By the time they made it to the source, there was only a small plate filled with milk on an empty balcony.

The Hokage sent out people to search.

They would find nobody.

But by the next morning, several children who'd sought out a stray cat learned of cruelty.

And the heart-broken cries of their mothers as they found their broken bodies would fill the air.

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Story: [Counter Guardian]

Genre: Adventure

Summary: EMIYA is called to deal with Madara, and ends up raising Naruto.

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The Shinigami watched the man who made a deal with Death in order to save his Village. A desperate attempt to stop a raging beast by sealing it into his own son.

He cared not for this man's purpose. He cared not for this man's hopes and dreams.

But he caught a glimpse of eyes that didn't belong. Eyes that he should've been able to claim so very long ago.

The Shinigami could not work outside of his contract, he couldn't reach out to grab that man and pull him back into his realm. His contract was to seal the Kyuubi into a newborn infant. That was all he was able to do.

But the Shinigami had long since learned how to bend the rules. And so, as he finished sealing the raging bijuu inside of his summoner's own son, the Shinigami took his payment of the man's soul and made his way back into his own realm.

And on his way, he asked the World if it knew of the man who desired its destruction, the man whom he couldn't claim.

And so it was, that as the man that went by the name Madara crawled to his feet and got ready to retreat, he was met with something that was Not Human.

"Counter Guardian Emiya." The Not Human dressed in red introduced himself in a cold voice. "Trace on."

Madara, exhausted after his fight against the Yondaime, and both surprised and disturbed by the Not Human's appearance lasted all of twenty-two seconds before his body finally surrendered and his soul was gleefully claimed by the Shinigami.

Counter Guardian Emiya stared out at the Village, frowning at the sight of so much destruction. He'd been betrayed by his ideal, but he still longed for it, still searched for it, and so continued to be betrayed by it.

But even so, as he remembered a fight in a destroyed castle and a boy still unrefined, he wondered if perhaps he could afford to try just one more time. To live up to his ideal, to save everyone.

He had erased what the World had sent him there to erase, but there was so much destruction, so many people needing to be saved. Perhaps... perhaps he could cling to his existence here for a little while longer, just to save as many people as possible.

And so, the man who'd made a deal with the World appeared at the scene of the Kyuubi's rampage, digging out people from rubble, and healing those who closed in on death with a sheath of golden light.

But this is not a story about how a Counter Guardian's attempt at kindness changed it all, this is a story about how a Counter Guardian stumbled upon an infant with golden hair, covered in ink, and heard the final bleary words of the infant's father, the man too close to Death's door that he proved unable to even recognize to whom he was talking.

"Let him be known as a hero."

And the Not Human who'd once taken up that very ideal from his own father, from his savior, from his idol, wondered if perhaps the World enjoyed flaunting the concept of irony at those contracted to it.

Emiya shook his head as the stubborn, soulless man finally drew his last breath, gingerly picking up the blond boy.

The ideal of a hero. The ideal to save everyone. To bestow such a heavy burden onto the shoulders of an infant...

Emiya gazed into the child's blue eyes, trying to find some manner of explanation for the faith placed in this fragile human.

A demon with nine tails roared in an eternal prison. The boy with golden hair and blue eyes met his eyes with a small smile.

And with a burning sensation that had nothing to do with fire, Counter Guardian Emiya gazed in horror as the pattern of three tattoos made its way onto the infant's bloodied hand.

His kindness had stolen him, however briefly, from the merciless World to which he'd pledged himself. And perhaps... just perhaps, this boy could become a hero.

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Story: [A Hero and a God]

Genre: Drama

Summary: What if Naruto didn't pull new techniques out of his ass? What if he was just too heroic to fail?

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He stood.

He'd been pinned to the ground, and yet he stood.

He was bleeding, he was torn, he might possibly be dying, and yet he stood.

Hinata lay behind him, that was why he stood. He couldn't fall. He couldn't be allowed to fall.

He didn't know what it truly meant to love, he wasn't sure if he could ever return her feelings, but she was precious to him.

An open palm that caught Pein's fist. The ground cratering beneath him, and yet he would not move. He would not fall.

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto, you're in my way, God." There was no sarcasm in his words. If anything, there was an acceptance of just how far out of his league Pein truly was. But his words didn't waver.

A punch. A simple punch. There was no hidden technique, no Sage Mode, no Kyuubi, Pein wasn't sure if it was even chakra-enhanced, it was just a simple punch.

Pein hit the ground with a sickening crunch.

And as he looked up, he found himself wondering, if perhaps, this was what a true hero looked like.

Naruto's eyes were blue, brilliantly blue. His blond hair was caked with dirt and blood, his clothes were torn, the blood splattered across them his own.

He met a God, he explained to it that it was in his way. When it didn't move, he went through it.

There was no hesitation, merely acceptance. Acceptance of his own weakness, acceptance of his own lack of knowledge. And yet neither of those mattered, because he would continue on his way, regardless of how many monsters, mountains, gods, devils, demons, that tried to stop him.

The punch shouldn't even have hurt him, he was called a God for more than his own ego, and yet it hurt. It felt as if his entire skeleton had turned to shards of glass, his organs into mush, and his very soul had been bruised.

Pein knew a lot about souls, and you couldn't actually bruise a soul. Rip it out, bring it back from the dead, possibly even crush it entirely. You could do many things with a soul. But bruising it shouldn't be possible.

Perhaps that was why he remembered that book. That book filled with dreams, with purpose, with stupid heroics and obnoxious ideals. The book that this man had been named after.

In a place far away, Nagato turned to the woman at his side, the angel to his godhood.

"In the stories, what happens when a God falls from the heavens?" He asked, his voice cracking, his voice confused, his voice so young and so old both at the same time.

Konan stared at him, not comprehending his sudden question, but with a frown she answered. "They meet a Hero, and he saves them all."

Nagato smiled then, a relieved smile, a peaceful smile. "Ah, that's good. I was worried." He paused. "Konan, I met a Hero. I want to hear about it, how he saved us all, when you join us. It's time for me to get out of his way."

And so he called upon the souls of Konoha, and they answered.

Pein looked up at the man standing above him. "That spirit... don't ever give it up. I'll be waiting once you're done." He smiled, peacefully. "Save them all."

Naruto stared down at the god that lay at his feet, his eyes showing an understanding that shouldn't have been possible. He nodded. "Don't worry. I will."

And so Nagato drew his final breath, happy, at peace.

XXX


	2. Naruto the Faker

Story: [Naruto the Faker]

Summary: After an accident, Naruto wakes up with amnesia, the memory of a man in red with a distorted Ideal, and a very peculiar understanding of weaponry.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

XXX

Naruto stared at the man in red.

Dark, tanned skin, his hair white despite his youthful face.

He wasn't the tallest of men. He wasn't the bulkiest of men. But he was without a doubt the single most imposing man he'd ever seen.

It defied common sense. This man wasn't a ninja, he knew nothing of chakra, or ninjutsu, or genjutsu. This man was a knight. A Hero of the kind that rescued princesses and fought back demons without hesitation.

This man had an Ideal. Something to live for, something to break for, something to fight for, something to die for, something to continue reaching for even as his body rotted away to dust.

This man could not be stopped. He could not be defeated. Not because he was strong, but because he would always get up that final time. That one time that truly mattered.

Naruto wasn't certain of how it'd come to be that he stood before this man. How it'd come to be that he was facing the man resolutely.

All he knew was that he would die if he failed. He would cease to exist. The entity known as Naruto would shatter like glass.

But the wind was blowing so hard, and he knew that he would never be able to reach beyond where the red man stood. Where the red man waited for him.

He needed to pass him, because he had no other option, but he knew that it was impossible to pass him. The wind blew too hard, tearing away at his flesh, piercing through his very bones to keep him away.

Yet the red man was closer to it. He'd gotten that far without losing himself. Without being ripped away by the wind.

Naruto knew that the man was an Ideal. And he knew that Ideals don't bleed like humans, they don't break like humans, they don't falter like humans. But even so, this man had walked further. Even if he was an Ideal, even if Naruto could never match him, Naruto would surpass him.

Because whilst the man in red was an Ideal, Naruto couldn't stop, couldn't allow himself to stop.

Naruto had no Ideal, he had no skills, he had nothing. Yet he would march onwards, because Naruto would never admit defeat.

So he took another step towards the man in red, who glanced back at him, his eyes betraying nothing. There would be no sympathy from the Ideal, no kindness, no help, no salvation, no betrayal, no promises, no hatred, no anger, no fear, no compassion, no pity, no amusement.

He was simply reaching for an Ideal. And the red man could never have comprehended someone who didn't.

Another step, and the wind cut through his flesh, burned through his blood, pierced through his bones, sang through his marrow.

He stood next to the man in red. And there was acknowledgment in those gray eyes now.

Because the Ideal was hard to reach, and nobody except the man in red could've imagined reaching for it desperately enough to get this far. And yet Naruto stood next to him. Next to the man who became an Ideal.

He knew how far the man in red had gone to reach this place. How long he'd fought. He heard the clang of steel in battles long passed, he smelled the blood on his hands of those he couldn't save, and he saw the mountains that the man had had to climb.

Naruto hissed another suffocating breath through clenched teeth, and took another step.

The world was immersed in static.

He could not reach here.

He did not belong here.

He was not welcome here.

The world was dissolving in static and white, the man in red fading away into the distance of a single step. The wind cutting further, deafening him to all but its howling.

Naruto took another step, because his legs could still move. And he would continue on until they gave out under him. And once they did, he would crawl, his arms dragging him further.

Naruto would never surrender.

He would never be an Ideal, but he would surpass them all.

He was going to be Hokage.

XXX

Naruto sat up with a start.

No. No, he did not in fact sit up with a start.

Naruto would've sat up with a start. But his flesh was burning. His skin was melting. His eyes were screaming. His throat was shattering. His bones were crushed.

Naruto would've sat up with a start. But he couldn't move. His body had shut down completely.

Naruto startled awake to an existence of pain.

There were no thoughts, no instincts, no movements, not even any change in the beating of his exhausted heart.

But he knew. He knew that he was safe.

His world turned black again.

XXX

When next he awoke, the world was white.

Everything was white. The sheets, the ceiling, the walls. Everything shone white in the artificial light.

He was in a hospital, that he could recognize quickly, though for what cause he didn't know.

He remembered the man in red. He remembered his beautifully twisted Ideal. He remembered the smell of blood and the sounds of battle. He remembered the howling wind. He remembered the world breaking down around him. He remembered continuing to walk.

He had a name, he recalled. His name was Naruto.

And he had a goal, he recalled. He was going to be Hokage.

The world muddled away into static.

He wasn't sure what a Hokage was, or what it did, or why that was his goal, rather than the beautifully twisted Ideal of the man in red.

It was important though.

His name was Naruto, and he was going to be Hokage.

That was the absolute of his world.

The hospital room was very peaceful.

XXX

An old man had introduced himself as the Hokage. The Third, he said.

Naruto asked what a Hokage was. It was important that he knew.

The old man looked pained, as if someone had hurt him, but told Naruto that the Hokage was the strongest ninja and protected Konoha from enemies.

So he was going to be a protector. That sounded good. It reminded him of the beautifully twisted Ideal of the man in red. He was a savior. Naruto would be a protector. They were similar.

Naruto was pleased.

The Third Hokage talked to him for a while, asked him of his name, asked him what he remembered.

Naruto answered, spoke of the howling wind and the man in red. But he didn't speak of the Ideal.

The Ideal wasn't truly his to share. He wasn't a savior, merely a protector. Or, he would be. He wasn't Hokage yet.

So he spoke of the howling wind that tore him to pieces, of walking forward because there was no going back, of standing side-by-side to the white-haired man in red.

The Third asked him of the man, he looked nervous.

Naruto told him that he was a savior, a Hero, a knight. He told him that the man was strong, but fragile. That he was sad, yet happy.

When the Third asked why he called a strong man fragile, Naruto had frowned.

It wasn't his Ideal to share, and it was the Ideal that kept him fragile, even as it lent him strength beyond everyone else.

But the Third was insistent, and Naruto sighed.

"He was fragile because he died. Alone on a hill of swords."

There were no more questions after that. Though the Hokage didn't seem pleased by his answer.

XXX

Naruto dreamed of static.

An image out of focus.

He wasn't sure what it meant, that the static from the wind followed him into his dreams.

He asked one of the nurses.

She glared at him, but refused to answer.

Naruto wondered if the wind was a bad thing, that the mere mentioning of it would give rise to such hatred. Or did the nurse dislike him? It was possible. Some of them did, though he didn't know why.

He asked another nurse, this one frowned, wrote something on a paper, and disappeared.

The Hokage visited again.

The old man asked him about his dreams. And Naruto told him of the static.

He was asked to describe the image. Was it a face? A room? A color? An object?

Naruto thought that it might've been an object, but the blurry gray outline kept him from being certain.

The Hokage sighed, told him to rest, and disappeared from the room.

XXX

The next morning another man came, he called himself Ibiki. He had many scars.

Ibiki asked him of his dreams.

Naruto told him of the static. The gray image out of focus. It hadn't become clearer, but the image had remained the same.

Ibiki looked thoughtful, pondering something with a serious face. Then he pulled out a small knife.

Sharp, deadly, excellent for throwing, it was a kunai.

Naruto flinched, his head hurting at the sudden information.

Ibiki quickly removed the kunai from his sight, asking him if he was alright.

"It was a kunai, excellent for throwing, it was forged three years ago, from remnants of former kunai, it has been used with intent to kill a total of sixteen times." Naruto explained.

Naruto wasn't sure if Ibiki was impressed or confused. Perhaps both.

XXX

Ibiki showed Naruto a few more kunai, each one gave him a headache, but it grew smaller every time. His brain was getting used to processing the sudden influx of information.

Naruto liked kunai. They were perfectly understandable.

He could tell Ibiki more of the man's kunai than he himself knew.

Ibiki was impressed, but curious.

He returned the next day with a sword.

It had been used with the intent to kill a total of sixteen hundred times, and been wielded by three different people. One of them a master, one of them proficient, and one of them a fool.

Ibiki smiled at that.

The Hokage visited later that day, asking him how he could know such things about weapons that he had never seen before.

Naruto didn't understand.

It was simple. All you had to do was look.

XXX

It took Naruto nearly two hours to get over the headache caused by understanding seventeen weapons at once.

The Hokage was worried, and insisted that Naruto should think of a way to keep himself from trying to understand more than he could handle.

Naruto asked him to stop seeing in color.

The Hokage let the matter drop, though his frown betrayed that he wasn't pleased with it.

XXX

Naruto wasn't sure what his newfound ability could be used for. Other than identifying a weapon, because that could technically be useful all by itself.

Ibiki had asked him if he could make a copy of a weapon that he'd understood.

Naruto had begun to shake his head before stopping. Perhaps he could. Even if he didn't have the skill of the blacksmith, nor the identical raw material, or the accumulated experience... Perhaps he could still create it, as long as he understood it well enough.

That was why Naruto was sitting with a kunai in his hands, staring at it, understanding it time and time again, making certain that it'd been memorized, despite knowing that he'd done so on his first passing glance.

He visualized the raw material, hypothesized the skill of its maker, compensated for the accumulated experience.

It burned.

Iron melting through his veins.

There was nothing but burning pain, and yet he kept the image clear in his head, a perfect schematic for the kunai.

He screamed, his teeth gritting together in utter agony.

XXX

When he came to, Ibiki sat on a chair next to him, holding two kunai in front of him.

One was the one he'd been left with, the other was similar, but... wrong.

It spoke of being made by a blacksmith who'd never laid eyes on it, it spoke of materials that did not belong to it, it spoke of experiences that it'd never known.

It was a copy. A failed copy.

Ibiki smiled. "Not bad, for a first attempt."

XXX

The pain of that first attempt was never repeated, and though his veins burned, and his blood boiled, and he gritted his teeth to keep from screaming, Naruto knew that it would get easier with practice.

And so he practiced. On kunai, on shuriken, on swords, on axes, on any weapon he was allowed to see.

His room became special, but they didn't move him out of the hospital. Failed copies of weapons covered the floor, their originals endlessly proving themselves superior.

His copies shattered, Ibiki told him, too fragile to be much use other than as projectiles.

Naruto understood, because his copies weren't comparable to the originals, even if they could last for days before they faded away.

He made them out of nothing, and they returned to becoming nothing. Reality overwriting itself over their existence.

It made sense, even if the Hokage seemed confused by it.

Finally, came the day that they released him from his room. The day when he was allowed outside.

He wasn't sure why people were glaring, but didn't much care. They weren't weapons, weapons could be understood, people were much more confusing.

Ibiki asked him to spar with him, despite how the Hokage seemed to dislike the idea of a grown man fighting an eight year old.

Naruto had accepted, curious as to what might happen if he were to wield his own copies in battle.

If they shattered, he could make new ones. Better ones.

In the end, Naruto realized the true wonders of his ability.

He could remember the previous wielder's abilities.

A kunai that he could never hit a target with, flew without hesitation, just in the way that it knew that its true wielder would've made it do. A sword deflected each attack, with the skill of a man who'd fought hundreds of battles with it as his only shield against death.

Naruto knew nothing of handling weapons. He was merely a maker. But he could rely on them knowing how to keep him safe.

By the end of their spar, once Naruto explained how he could move even without having been trained, Ibiki started laughing.

Naruto kind of liked Ibiki. The man had helped him find a use for his unusual talent.

The Hokage watched them both with sad eyes.

XXX

Naruto started the Academy.

It was filled with people his age, most of them armed with kunai.

Except for one girl. One girl that was armed to the teeth.

Naruto had understood twenty-four different weapons at once. Kunai, shuriken, axes, spears, swords. The list went on. Naruto had returned from the static to find himself looking into worried, chocolate brown eyes.

Her name was Tenten, and after he explained the reason for him almost blacking out, she became thoughtful.

They sparred, and he won. Because he'd seen weapons that remembered how their wielders dodged, blocked and attacked. And he never ran out of weapons, each one a different range, each one a different style, each one deadly.

He knew that she couldn't follow her weapons like he did, so he did his best to let her copy him. It was awkward, it took time, they sparred enough times that he lost count, they became good friends, rivals.

A wielder, and a maker.

XXX

Tenten graduated a year ago, but she still stopped by to visit him at the training ground, sparring, talking, learning. Now it was his turn to graduate.

He aced taijutsu, because he listened to the modified copy of a kunai in his pocket, hit every target in front of him, and barely scraped by on the written test thanks to Tenten's reminders. But he still couldn't do a Bunshin, and Iruka would've told him that he failed, had Ibiki not vouched for him.

Ibiki was the head of the Interrogation Department, and Naruto had understood why he'd been the one asking him questions all those years ago. The Hokage wanted any answers that he could give, so he made Ibiki who was used to the job, ask the questions.

But Ibiki liked him. He thought he was intriguing, a puzzle to be solved, impossible abilities to map out. Ibiki visited him sometimes, often bringing a weapon from an enemy. Naruto had heard that Ibiki had a standing request that all weapons captured by enemies were to be given to him for a day.

The Hokage didn't truly approve of this request, but Naruto enjoyed Understanding new weapons, and so the Third allowed it.

Mizuki glared at the scarred man when he showed up. Iruka frowned at him, demanding that he give good reasons for him interfering in their work.

Ibiki asked him to recreate some weapons, much to Iruka's confusion.

Naruto started with a sword, moved onto a spear, before forming a flail, a windmill-shuriken came next, then another sword, followed by an ax.

The chunin stared at the mass of weapons in confusion.

"Now, Naruto, dismiss them."

Naruto frowned, disliking to dismiss weapons without using them, but he nodded, and the weapons faded into nothingness.

"As you can see." Ibiki started calmly to the teachers. "Whilst Naruto cannot do a Bunshin, he's fully capable of doing things that we've labeled as impossible." He smiled, showing off a bit too many teeth. "And I've seen students passing for less."

And that was how he passed his exam, and was given his hitai-ate.

XXX

He was on a team with the Uchiha, and the pink fangirl.

Naruto had a headache that was for once in his life, not caused by weapons.

He supposed it could be worse. Naruto had met Tenten's sensei. And his clone.

Suppressing a shudder, Naruto stared out through a window, ignoring his teammates. They were people, and people in general weren't worth the effort of understanding. Much better to stick to weapons. They made sense.

The sky was blue, their sensei was several hours late, and Naruto was toying with the image of the three-pronged kunai that was so hard to make.

He just couldn't sympathize with the skill of its wielder. It always dissolved into static when he tried. The raw materials were easy, the shape slightly unusual, the aging since its make understandable, but the skill with which it had been used forced him back into static every time.

Gritting his teeth, Naruto tried anyway.

In his hand a three-pronged kunai slowly took shape, his vision turning into black and white, the three-pronged kunai was all that mattered, the howling winds tore at his eardrums, there was something wet on his face, his world was dissolving into static, but Naruto pushed on through.

The weight of the three-pronged kunai finally settled comfortably in his hand, asking to be wielded with the skill of its wielder.

So Naruto threw it, heedless of how he could no longer feel the left side of his body. Because he refused to give up.

And then Naruto was on the other side of the classroom, passing out, his nose bleeding, his eyes bleeding, his ears bleeding, and his left side completely numb.

When their sensei showed up, he was greeted by two obviously unnerved students and a note from the hospital saying that his third one wouldn't be available for some time.

Kakashi thought that this was very strange.

XXX

When Naruto woke up, he was scolded. First by a nurse who'd gotten used to him passing out over the years, then by Ibiki who said that it was important to know your body's limits, and finally by the Hokage who had been worried.

Naruto accepted their words, knowing that he had pushed himself too far, but not truly caring about it.

He had succeeded. He had managed to sympathize with the skill of its wielder. And then he had managed to use it.

When he told Ibiki of his success the man had stared at him for a long moment, before a smile that had a lot of teeth in it appeared on his face. Naruto thought that Ibiki looked a bit like a wolf when he smiled.

When his sensei finally visited him in the hospital, and asked him what he'd done to land himself there, Naruto answered that it'd been an experiment, that had succeeded.

Kakashi didn't seem to think that a successful experiment should land its tester in the hospital, but Naruto dismissed that. Sometimes a successful experiment could kill you, and sometimes a failed experiment could save you. It was merely a matter of how far you were willing to push the limits.

Naruto didn't believe in limits. He had walked past the man in red, he had met an Ideal and he had continued moving. Limits were for other people. He was a maker.

Still, he made a note to himself not to recreate the three-pronged kunai until he was certain that he had recovered from his breakthrough.

XXX

"My name is Hatake Kakashi. I like lots of things. I dislike some things. I have many hobbies. My dream is none of your business." Their teacher demonstrated. "Now blondie, you're up."

"My name is Naruto." Because the name 'Uzumaki' that some ensured him was part of him, wasn't something he'd ever truly accepted. "I like weapons. I dislike... people. My hobby is Understanding. My dream is to be Hokage."

The jounin stared at him for a moment, apparently not grasping the lack of a surname and the implication of understanding with a capital letter. Sakura humphed at his dream, apparently believing that such a thing was out of his reach. Sasuke ignored him, having already dismissed his existence as beneath him a long time ago.

The rest of the introductions were things that Kakashi could understand more easily than Naruto's. And he continued on to explain the daunting second test.

Sakura was horrified, Sasuke was angered, Naruto accepted it and moved on. He was used to accepting things, people were complicated.

Kakashi decided to check out Naruto's file a bit closer. Clearly there was something odd about the blond Jinchuuriki.

XXX

Naruto smiled, his lips twitching upwards in a distinctly amused way, as he stood in front of the man that had told them to come at him with the intent to kill.

Kakashi suppressed the urge to sigh, deciding that Naruto was obviously a hopeless case if he couldn't even hide himself properly.

Naruto created an ax that had always been swung in wide arcs. He let it fly like its blacksmith had originally intended.

Kakashi blinked, uncertain of what he'd just seen, but dodged the ax without difficulty.

Naruto smile never wavered, as more and more weapons flowed from his hands and through the air.

Kakashi would've missed the three-pronged kunai joining the general barrage if Naruto hadn't flinched before pulling it out of wherever he was hiding all those weapons.

As it was, he wondered angrily who had given the boy the Fourth's kunai like that. It wasn't something genin should be allowed to have in their possession, clearly he didn't even know what it was for.

Deciding to teach the brat a lesson in humility, Kakashi blinked as he found himself charging at place which Naruto no longer occupied.

A windmill-shuriken came from behind him, and Kakashi wondered if Sasuke had gotten in on the action.

He found Naruto standing there, one of his eyes crying tears of blood, at his feet was a three-pronged kunai, and in his hands he held a sword.

Kakashi was confused. No genin could ever hope to replicate the Hiraishin, it was too complicated. And yet, it almost seemed as if Naruto had done just that. Though why he was bleeding, the jounin couldn't say.

Still, none of this mattered, he'd just have to get a bit serious.

All his attacks were blocked by the sword.

Each and every single one.

Naruto dodged, blocked, deflected, weaved through his attacks like an untouchable whirlwind, and almost managed to scratch Kakashi in return.

The kid was _good_. Easily chunin-level.

The sword shattered like glass, causing Kakashi's single eye to widen in surprise.

Then the same sword continued to block, deflect, and counterattack.

Kakashi was absolutely certain that it was the same sword. So the shattering must've been an genjutsu of some sort, though he couldn't understand the purpose of such an illusion.

Finally, almost as if by a miracle, Kakashi managed to land a kick in the blond's stomach, launching him away into the distance.

Naruto coughed blood.

That was worrying, he wasn't supposed to seriously harm his students, and even if he'd heard of Naruto being able to heal at a quicker pace than normal, he wasn't sure that the Hokage would be willing to let it slip.

Naruto stood up, not bothering to wipe away the blood from his face, and instead creating a spear. A spear that he threw back at Kakashi.

Shaking his head at the silliness of trying to hit a jounin – elite or not – with something as ridiculously obvious as a spear, Kakashi sidestepped it.

And then it blew up.

Cursing at not having seen the exploding tag that must've been there, Kakashi rolled along the ground to counter the momentum of the blast.

He glanced back at Naruto, who was breathing heavily, but was still smiling.

Naruto lifted up his hand, and scrunched up his face in concentration and pain, but still not letting that damnable smile waver.

A sword launched itself at him, along with a kunai, and an ax, and three spears, and two shuriken.

Kakashi frowned, not understanding how the boy seemed to have launched them with nothing but his will. Some manner of chakra-manipulation no doubt, but how come Kakashi hadn't ever heard of it? He wanted a technique like this, it would certainly come in handy.

Making sure to dodge the spears, and keeping a very good eye out for any more exploding tags, Kakashi was taken aback when the ax exploded for seemingly no reason, again launching him away with the force of the blast.

Naruto was breathing hard. His heartbeat thumping in his throat, the static encroaching on his vision, the wind howling in his ear.

The three-pronged kunai of the Hiraishin were still too far out of his reach for him to be comfortable with creating them. The exploding blades however, just took a lot of chakra and a slight change in concept. A concept that said that it would explode rather than fade away. And the concept that they were moving at high speed, rather than being stationary, at the moment of their creation.

Still, it was straining, and he wasn't feeling all that great after his attempt with the Hiraishin. The kick in the stomach certainly hadn't made it better.

But Kakashi was on the run, not understanding how blades could explode without the use of exploding notes, and unable to predict which of the weapons he threw after him would be the next to blow up after he dodged them.

Naruto understood that it was unlikely that this was how the test was supposed to go, but he couldn't afford to stop and think, knowing that the moment he did, Kakashi would counterattack. So he continued to struggle, continued to attack, continued to create numerous weapons.

He supposed that he should be working on a plan to get to the bells, but other than the Hiraishin, he didn't really have anything that could get him close enough to grab them. And he wasn't as accurate as Tenten, so he doubted that he'd be able to cut the bells loose from where he was. And even if he could do that, he would still need to get his hands on them before Kakashi caught on and took the bells for his own.

No, Naruto needed something different. Something that he had never Understood. Something that probably could never exist, not really.

He needed something that could cut string and steal and return to its wielder.

He needed something that he'd never even heard of existing.

He had a concept of creation, he imagined a suitable form, he judged a suitable material, he imitated the skill needed to create it, he sympathized with the skill needed to wield it, he concluded the number of years needed for it to become engrained in its existence.

Static turned his sight black and white, the howling wind in his ears were tearing away at his consciousness.

He fell to one knee, his previously empty hand closing around what he knew would do what it was meant to do. And he threw it with all his might in the direction of Kakashi.

He heard it sing through the air over the static, but he knew that he was losing consciousness. He had reached a bit too far again. He would be scolded for it. But it was progress. Immense progress. Because it wasn't a copy. It was merely an idea granted form.

He lifted his hand, grabbing onto the odd kunai as it returned to him, smiling up at where he could only guess that Kakashi was realizing that his bells were missing.

"You looking for these?" He croaked hoarsely, his throat sore from a scream that he hadn't let out, the bells jingling softly from his fingers.

Then he passed out.

XXX

"He did what?" The Hokage stared at the man in front of him with a mixture of confusion and horror.

"He got the bells, sir. Without help, using a two-bladed kunai. He then passed out." Kakashi frowned. "I would also like to ask who gave him one of the Fourth's kunai, that isn't something a genin should be in possession of."

"Nobody did." The Third commented absently, trying to remember if he'd ever heard of Naruto using a two-bladed kunai before, or if anyone he knew had ever used one. "He was shown one, once, a few months ago, I believe. It intrigued him, but he wasn't allowed to keep it, and he hasn't stolen any." He added before that could be suggested.

"Are you telling me that a genin was once shown the kunai for the Hiraishin, and without coaching was not only capable of recreating the kunai, but also fake the Hiraishin technique itself?" Kakashi demanded.

The Third choked. "He learned it?" He paused, staring in awe straight ahead. "He truly can do it. He can truly comprehend it." A horrified smile etched itself onto his lips. "Truly, what a terrifying talent."

"Hokage-sama?" Kakashi questioned hesitantly. "What do you mean by talent?"

"He can recreate any weapon he sees. And use it with the skill and experience of its former wielders." The Third answered, because it wasn't really a secret, and Kakashi was technically his jounin-sensei.

"What?" Kakashi rubbed his ear, trying to get it cleaner. "I'm sorry, what did you just say?"

"He can copy weapons, like you copy techniques. And he can recreate them instantly, with the skill and style of its wielder. He managed to force Ibiki to get serious when he was eight years old. Straight after getting out of the hospital."

Kakashi stared. "And nobody told me?"

"It isn't classified, just not in the Academy's records." Except for a brief mention of weapon specialization and a recommendation from Ibiki that he would be allowed to graduate. The Third amended silently to himself.

Kakashi shook his head, trying to clear it of this new influx in information on the Jinchuuriki. "And what about my test?"

"What about it?"

"He took the bells without teamwork, which is against the nature of the test, which means that I should therefore fail him. But he actually managed to take the bells, which means that he should be allowed to pass." Kakashi elaborated on his current headache.

"Oh, that." The Hokage frowned, understanding the problem. "Well, the council will probably be upset if we were to fail the Uchiha simply because Naruto didn't have time nor reason to share the bells with his teammates before blacking out. But we can't pass him when he didn't do anything." He groaned. "There's going to have to be a second test of some sort. This one allowing them to focus on teamwork."

"A second bell-test?" Kakashi asked with obvious reluctance.

"A second bell-test with only one bell and the two remaining to compete over it? It could end badly." He nodded in understanding. "And even if it did work it still wouldn't clear Naruto on that front."

"So we need to bring the three together again?"

"I would assume so, unless we were to break the team apart and force them into solo teams in some manner."

"Solo teams?" Kakashi hadn't heard of that as an option before.

"The council wants you to train the Uchiha, and I'm doubtful they'll be pleased if he doesn't pass. On the other hand, they don't care what happens to the rest of Team 7, and there's been pressuring to remove Naruto from the team-system altogether, as a way to 'protect the genin' from his tenant." The Third sighed.

"So, with Naruto passing in such an odd way, and the question about the remaining team-members, it wouldn't be surprising to actually forgo the system in its entirety in an attempt to avoid ruffling feathers." Kakashi concluded, a bit bitterly.

"I don't like it." The Third admitted defensively. "But I honestly can't see how we're supposed to solve it otherwise. Even if we redo the bell-test from the start, it would just prove to them that either Naruto was useless, or there's something wrong about the test. It wouldn't be fair."

Kakashi groaned. "I'm going to be stuck with the Uchiha no matter what, aren't I?"

"It sure seems that way, doesn't it?" The Third mused.

"And what of Naruto?" Kakashi asked.

"Well, I would normally recommend someone useful for his development, but the only one I can think of is Ibiki, and they meet far too often for my liking as it is. The head of Interrogation shouldn't be around children when he's still in work-mode." The Third sighed resignedly.

"Perhaps a weapon-master? To help keep him in shape." Kakashi suggested absently, as he moped over being stuck with the Uchiha.

XXX

By the time that Naruto had awoken, he was fairly certain that the two bells had been a ploy to destabilize any potential teamwork, and that the only way for a genin to actually succeed in defeating a jounin would mean to work together. In other words, he must've really made a mess out of the test.

This made him feel a bit guilty, but mostly amused.

What would happen to Team 7? Would it pass? Would only Naruto pass since the others hadn't even had time for an attempt? Would they be split up so that the others could be tried again?

There were a lot of questions. And until Ibiki or the Hokage arrived to scold him over going too far, there would be nobody to answer them.

Naruto sighed, staring out the window up at the dark sky.

He had probably been out for half a day, enough time for the sun to set, enough time to mostly recover from the static. Even if his ears weren't up to par, and the clock on the wall kept making jumps that seemed to last for several minutes at a time.

Still, he would be fine by tomorrow, mostly, and would be back to Understanding without risking consequences the day after that.

XXX

The jounin in front of him had introduced himself as Tekuno Kanden. And had told him that due to several problems, Naruto would be working as a kind of apprentice under him.

Naruto had felt a certain glee at this information after the man demonstrated his own skills. Explosives, traps, cannons, crossbow.

Somehow avoiding to drool at the sight of the cannons, Naruto grinned.

He was fairly certain that he was going to enjoy this.

XXX

Sakura had been picked up by medic-nin, who'd sounded curious about her skill for memorization and her perfect chakra-control. She would be trained, not so much as a ninja, but as a chakra-using medic. She seemed content with this, though greatly disappointed at being removed from Sasuke's side.

Sasuke was training under Kakashi, if you could call humiliating him, beating him senseless, lecturing him about safety-protocols, and just generally attempting to stomp the 'avenger' out of his system, as training.

Naruto was working under Tekuno, and could often be seen working on creating new weapons that were capable of a certain task. In some cases, it would be to always return to his hand, other times it would always hit a target, or it would convince people not to notice him.

The last one didn't seem to be holding up particularly well, but it now allowed him a certain degree of camouflage if nobody was actively looking for him.

Again, his talent was proving oddly effective for various things.

There were even weapons that attempted to mimic the abilities of the swords of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist. Though none of Naruto's attempts would be of much use in an actual battle.

The weapons he created needed to believe that they'd experienced things that they couldn't have experienced, or it would mess with his fighting style. This meant that he was usually forced to copy a similar shape and then overwrite the experience with that. The only exception to this rule seemed to come from his most unusual two-bladed kunai, the first weapon that wasn't a copy.

The two-bladed kunai couldn't be fought with, it would be useless to fight with it, it couldn't truly cut through anything much thicker than string. It would break easily. However, it was startlingly accurate and would always return to its wielder with what it'd cut. Like a pair of bells, or a leaf, or a scroll.

It was a very interesting kunai.

Though not quite as amazing as the three-pronged kunai of the Hiraishin. Because even if his copies could never defeat the originals, they could still do the things that the originals could, and with the experience of the Fourth at his side Naruto would be unstoppable when his body finally got over that pesky 'breaking down from overload'-phase that it was still going through.

XXX

Naruto loved his 'color cannon'. It allowed him to finish any painting D-Ranks within minutes. It had taken him days to get it right, and he'd ended up coloring an entire training ground all the colors of the rainbow, but it'd been worth it.

The paint went into a funnel. You aimed the cannon at the surface with a target painted on it. The cannon went off. You waited for it to dry.

It was _that_ simple. He and his cannon had in fact been requested by name on numerous occasions, and several people had attempted to buy the cannon from him. Unfortunately, he couldn't sell it even if he wanted to. It would only last for a few hours at a maximum, and it couldn't be replicated even if he were to draw an exact schematic over it.

The schematic would only show a cannon that shot paint. Everything lay in twisting its creation and accumulated experience until it could only hit that particular, marked area, and would always spread it with a nice, even coat of paint.

Still, this meant that he didn't have to worry about getting stuck painting fences. And with a rounded kunai that always pulled towards the nearest feline, Naruto had little to no difficulties with tracking down Tora. The only complicated part was releasing the pinned cat from underneath the 'imprisoning trident', which couldn't catch anything bigger than a large dog and took a lot of concentration to utilize. Unfortunately, he still hadn't managed to create a weapon that could sedate the violent scratching-machine until he returned it to its owner.

Regardless, Naruto had little problems with D-Ranks that didn't center around people in some way. Babysitting always ended badly, and picking up someone's shopping rarely worked out for him.

Tekuno was both amused and annoyed at his student's ability to get out of menial work, but he didn't mind horribly, and it was about time to move onwards to C-Ranks anyhow.

XXX

Naruto's first C-Rank was a joined mission with Team Gai.

Tekuno whimpered a bit at the thought of spending several weeks together with Maito Gai on a mission. Neji scoffed at what he classified as babysitting the rookie. Lee was ranting on about Youth. And Tenten greeted Naruto in good cheer.

When Gai questioned how they knew each other, Naruto had happily stated that she'd knocked him out cold on their first meeting.

As Tenten attempted to dismiss that as one of Naruto's quirks, Naruto continued in a loud voice to say that he'd simply seen too much of Tenten's to stay conscious. And as people around them started to blush, he belatedly commented that it was the first time he got a nosebleed from simply watching.

Tenten proceeded to smack him over the head and shout in a very loud voice that he had a weapon fetish.

Naruto didn't deny it, but simply grinned wider.

All present had managed to calm down by the time that their client arrived.

When the bridge-builder started commenting on being guarded by brats, Naruto pointed out that at least he wasn't balding.

Because he'd learned from Ibiki at an early age that nobody likes to lose their hair.

XXX

The chain of the Demon Brothers was very intriguing. Completely useless for his own personal fighting style due to the necessity of a partner, but intriguing nonetheless.

Neji had of course, spotted the puddle and its occupants far before they actually tried something, and with Lee's usual enthusiasm, the two chunin-level opponents were down for the count.

It was a fantastic display of experienced combatants. And though Neji looked even more condescending as Naruto hadn't really done anything but slip into a defensive position around Tazuna – there really hadn't been need for anything else – Naruto believed it to have been a profitable encounter.

They learned that their client was a liar, they learned that the two spandex-clones never backed down from a challenge, they learned that Neji didn't approve, and they learned where Tenten acquired a number of her weapons, namely, her opponents.

As the weapon-wielding girl hummed happily at having found such a potentially useful find, Naruto amused himself with trying to classify Lee's fists as weapons, and Understanding them. It didn't work, but it was amusing.

XXX

"Duck!" And all present threw themselves to the ground as a giant sword spun through the air.

Static encroached Naruto's vision.

So much blood. Such ability. Such skill. Such age.

Naruto couldn't resist.

He created a copy without a second thought.

And as Zabuza landed on his sword high up in the tree, Kubikiribocho appeared in Naruto's hands.

It was painful, and Naruto's nose was bleeding again, but he smiled anyways.

"Momochi Zabuza." Gai commented in an unusually serious tone.

Neji was staring in confusion at Naruto's own copy of the man's sword, Tenten was readying for battle, Lee was glancing at his idolized teacher for direction, and Tekuno was cursing his rotten luck.

Zabuza, who'd just been about to start on his intimidation rant about blood-covered hands, got distracted by the sword in Naruto's hands.

"How-?" He glared at the blond.

"It's my talent." Naruto responded casually, ignoring his bleeding nose as the fog started to distort their vision. "How long can you fight against yourself, Momochi-san?"

The jounin of the group really thought that someone had to beat subtlety into the boy with an anvil at some point in the future. The genin of the group were mostly confused, except Tenten who was just generally horrified.

Naruto dodged the strike that would've separated his head from his torso, before spinning, grunting in exertion as he twisted the blade into the missing-nin's leg.

The missing-nin promptly turned to water.

Naruto knew that he wouldn't be able to fight against a true wielder with their own weapon. Ignoring how much more familiar they were with their style than he was with theirs, he lacked the body-mass to wield this particular sword effectively. And then there were the jutsu that the Demon of the Mist had slipped into his fighting style over the years which Naruto couldn't copy.

But, he could distract the man, force him to make mistakes, confuse him with his abilities, and perhaps shock him by switching styles at an appropriate opportunity.

Yes, he should rely on the jounin of the group, because this man was clearly out of his league, but at the same time he couldn't just stand back. If Zabuza attacked him for impersonating his blade, then he would fight him to the utmost of his abilities. Besides, the jounin would be skilled enough to use the man's distraction against him.

Now, he just needed to continue moving.

Turning the blade, Naruto barely blocked a hit from the original sword.

His own sword shattered like glass, much like his weapons so often did when faced against their originals.

Thankfully, whilst Naruto had been expecting the shattering sword, Zabuza was a bit taken aback by it. And so Naruto created a kunai that would always at least scratch the target, and let it fly against the missing-nin's face.

The man promptly turned into water.

Two attacks, two clones down.

Water clones might be only ten percent of the creator's skill, but that should've been more than enough to deal with some genin. The fact that Naruto had just destroyed two of them, without getting hit by anything, was somewhat worrying.

Still, he was bleeding, even if it didn't come from Zabuza's attacks, Naruto was certainly hurting because of something. And so another water clone appeared to put an end to the annoying brat.

And was promptly turned to water again. Because Naruto's 'Scratching Kunai' really wasn't very hard to create, and would always scratch the one it was aimed at, and since water clones could be dispelled by mere scratches, there was no need for anything else until the original Zabuza appeared.

That would be the Zabuza that bled.

And then it was over, as Gai finally made a move, facing off against the original with an energy that left Naruto slack-jawed.

He Understood the man's weapon, but that didn't mean anything, because he would need to train his body to his dying day to be able to reach the pint where he could mimic the man's skill.

There was a difference between a maker and a wielder. And it made him promise to himself to step up his training so that his basic physical capability didn't lag behind.

XXX

**A/n: I've sort of seen it been done before, true, but I thought it'd be fun anyways. So I wrote it.**

XXX

XXX(Random omake)

A sword that froze everything that its blade cut. A knife that burned everything its blade touched.

Naruto realized that letting those two blades meet in battle was both painful and stupid.

He stared up at the hospital ceiling.

You learn best from experience, he concluded.


	3. The Kyuubi's Shinigami

The Kyuubi's Shinigami

**Summary: Naruto/Bleach Crossover, something else got caught in the Seal that night, and at the brink of Death, another power awakens.**

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

XXX

The Shinigami was a powerful thing. It was, after all, a god.

But even gods can be wounded.

No mortal could ever hope to scratch them, certainly. But what of a demon?

The Yondaime gritted his teeth as he stared in awe at the struggle between the Shinigami and the Kyuubi.

This was his bargain. His soul for the sealing of the demon fox.

But as the Shinigami finally managed to wrestle the Kyuubi into submission and push it towards the seal that he'd drawn on his son's stomach, both of them realized something.

The god could not let go of the demon, for if he did, it would tear itself free and their deal would be for naught.

So, Minato started the seal with the Shinigami's hand still lodged inside of his son, wounding a god, so that the demon could be sealed.

A small part of him wondered briefly what impact the hand of a god would have on the Kyuubi's prison, but even that thought melted away as he was dragged away by the one-handed Shinigami.

The answer he'd been looking for would be revealed.

One day.

But that day was many years away still.

And so Konoha mourned their hero and scorned his legacy.

Such as it always had been.

XXX

Tainted power coursed through the black haired boy as he held his closest friend aloft.

Lightning met flesh.

And the blond boy breathed his last breath.

Sasuke smiled wickedly as he watched the life fade from Naruto's eyes.

He'd done it. He'd beaten him. He'd gained power.

Another step towards his vengeance.

Another step on his path to kill that man.

And then something shifted.

Where once there'd been a dying boy, suddenly there was something else.

Something horrifying.

Something _alive_.

Sasuke was catapulted away from chakra that'd suddenly turned crimson red with an almost casual swipe of the Thing's hand.

Laughter rang through the Valley. Mirthful and victorious. Elated and mocking.

"Freedom!" The Thing that'd been Naruto shouted to the heavens. "Never again, Yondaime!" It laughed again, cruel and spiteful. "I'm _free_!"

Sasuke stumbled to his feet, barely able to think straight from the suddenly oppressive force that was the Thing's presence, but knowing that it would be best not to face it with anything less than full power.

Yet facing it was an impossibility.

Suppressing the instinctive _need_ to flee, to turn and run and never stop. And to keep on running until his feet had turned to bloody rags and his bones had shattered from his eternal flight. Anything to _get away from that Thing that was wearing Naruto's flesh like a suit_.

The Thing didn't seem to bother with his struggle, and the smallest part of the young avenger, the part that was everything that he wanted to be, was trying to ruthlessly suppress the mind-numbing thankfulness he felt for its dismissal. He was the Uchiha prodigy, he wasn't supposed to be looked down upon and be _thankful_ for it.

And then it was over, because the thing turned towards him with all the mocking awe of a madman.

"Oh? And what's this? A Sharingan user?" The name of the eyes of his clan sounded like poison from its tongue, and a small part of Sasuke – the part that sometimes just wanted to have his mother back – suddenly wished with feverish intensity that he'd never been born an Uchiha.

He did not respond to the thing's musings. But apparently it didn't expect him to.

It simply laughed again, quieter now, crueler somehow.

Sasuke stared up at the sky and wondered why it seemed so out of focus.

Then he felt the Pain.

The Pain wasn't like other pain. It was all-consuming. Nothing mattered but the Pain.

He wasn't sure how long it took before it faded, but a detached part of him wondered briefly if he would've screamed if his jaw hadn't been broken. If his lungs hadn't been pierced with his own ribs.

Perhaps he would've screamed.

Instead he whimpered.

The sky was slowly coming into focus as Sasuke began to realize that he hadn't even seen the Thing move.

He hadn't felt the impact.

Even now, he wasn't sure if the Thing had actually hit him.

Nothing could move like that. It just wasn't possible.

The Thing was impossible.

He couldn't fight it. _Nobody_ could fight it. It was a monster wearing his friend's flesh.

And that horrified him to no end.

"What?" The Thing's voice was confused, uncertain, suddenly. "What the hell-...?" There was a quivering in it's voice. Disbelief, confusion, _fear_.

Sasuke pushed himself up from where he lay, desperately searching for what could've made the Thing show fear.

He saw black clothes, golden hair, and a sword who's sheer size could compare to the one Zabuza had once wielded.

The Thing stared at the male that stood in between them.

"How-...?" It whispered in a slightly cracking voice.

The male opened his mouth, speaking, but no voice came out.

Yet the Thing drew back, as if hearing, as if understanding.

"The seal-! It must have absorbed-..." There was horror in the Thing's eyes now. "This is impossible. It can't be done!" It was back to shouting, still with that spark of fear hidden in its crimson eyes.

Sasuke stared as the male with golden hair shrugged, absurdly casual, as if the Thing was nothing special.

It took the dark-haired boy an eternity to recall the face.

The male was Naruto.

Naruto, standing there, outside his flesh, dressed in black, casually staring down the Thing that wore his flesh.

It was madness.

It was just like him.

Only Naruto could stare down the Thing as if it was just kind of pissing him off a bit, but that it really wasn't anything special and that he could totally kick its ass if he ever actually tried to.

And Sasuke started crying, tears rolling down his face. Because he'd tried to _kill_ him. He'd tried to kill his best friend.

Not because of love, or because it was the right thing to do. He'd tried to kill him just to use him as a stepping stone to his goal.

Naruto wasn't a stepping stone.

Naruto couldn't be a stepping stone.

Naruto was _Naruto_.

Madness, happiness, cheerfulness, impossibility and absolute will.

And then the Thing roared. Rage and fury mixing with desperation and longing.

Sasuke flinched as the wind itself seemed to shy away from the raging form.

And then Naruto stabbed it.

It looked so fantastically simple.

Pointy end of sword goes in other person.

And the Thing paused. Bewildered and pained.

Naruto looked surprised too, but he simply ripped his sword back out, leaving unblemished skin in its wake.

There was no blood. No sign of the horrible wound that should be there.

The sword was huge. It should've cut the Thing in half, yet there wasn't a single wound.

And just as Sasuke felt despair began crawling to the surface, the Thing toppled. Like a marionette with its strings cut off.

Sasuke blinked as Naruto caught his own flesh.

His mouth moved again, silently, and the Thing in his arms glanced up at him in surprise and awe.

"Why-...?"

Naruto's mouth opened again, silently, looking annoyed and embarrassed and sympathetic.

Sasuke's eyes went wide. Only Naruto could ever feel sympathy towards something like the Thing.

The Thing seemed to think in similar lines, for it stared at the boy who held it in his arms for a long moment.

And then it started to laugh.

There was no cruelty in it now. No victory, no mockery. It was amused, pleased, happy, relieved, sad, thankful.

And suddenly Sasuke understood.

He didn't know what the Thing was. He didn't understand why he couldn't hear Naruto's voice when he was right there. He couldn't comprehend what had just transpired.

But he understood.

Naruto had saved the Thing.

Sasuke wasn't sure how he'd done it. Why he'd done it. Or what he'd saved it from. But there was an absolute certainty that that was what had happened.

Because Naruto saved _everyone_.

And as he fell backwards, too spent to hold on to his consciousness, he mused that it might be nice, someday, to tell him thank you. For saving him too.

XXX

Naruto wasn't sure how he'd ended up in the black clothes.

He wasn't sure where he'd found the awesome sword either, but he could kind of live with that since it was awesome. The lack of orange in his clothing however, made him feel a bit put out.

The last thing he remembered was Sasuke shoving a Chidori through his chest. Which really, really hurt by the way. And then... here.

'Here' looked a lot like it had looked before he'd had a close encounter with the lightning technique, but whether that was because he hadn't moved, or if there was something else going on, was difficult to say. Mostly because he was wearing new clothes, had a sword, and didn't seem to have a gaping hole in his chest.

He grabbed his chest.

Nope, no hole. Not even any pain.

That might be really good, or it might be really bad.

Really good, he'd healed spontaneously because he was awesome. Really bad, he had died, and the wound didn't matter anymore.

What with it being him, and his inherent awesomeness, the first option was the one he was counting on. What with the new clothes, he had a unsettling feeling that it was most likely the latter.

Shaking his head to clear it, Naruto glanced around.

First things first, where was Sasuke?

As that thought echoed inside of his mind, the pressure came.

Pressure like standing under a waterfall.

A waterfall made from blood.

His eyes desperately seeking out the cause for this horror, Naruto finally truly _saw_ why people feared Kyuubi.

He could suddenly understand the hatred he'd suffered at the villagers hands. He didn't like them for it, but he wasn't entirely sure he could blame them for it.

The mere thought that something like that being sealed – no matter how soundly – inside a scroll that was allowed to walk around and _play with their children_.

It was almost enough to make him throw up.

The Kyuubi, because it could be nothing else that was wearing his flesh, shouted its freedom at the heavens. And some part of Naruto, the part that remembered Haku, wondered briefly at the strange feeling lingering inside of its voice.

Inside of the mockery, underneath the arrogance, hidden behind the veil of smugness, there was the relief of a starving man being fed. The kind of paranoid joy that seemed forever present amongst those who simply can't believe that the world has decided to be kind to them, to save them from their suffering.

Gaara had sounded a bit like that, back during the Invasion.

The thought made something resonate in his bones, vibrating mercilessly until it was as if the world itself shook.

He watched as the demon batted away his greatest rival with contemptuous ease. Watched as his eyes somehow managed to keep up with speeds he knew he shouldn't be able to see.

It was as if his legs moved on their own. His mind not registering their apparent suicidal urges before he'd already opened his mouth.

"Oi, fuzz-butt."

He saw it shiver, saw fear creep down its spine. And a part of him was pleased, a part amused, and a part disgusted with himself.

He didn't want to inspire fear. Respect, yes. But not fear. Never fear. It was why Gaara had terrified him so, the one who hadn't cared if it was respect or fear as long as it was there.

He didn't like the Kyuubi. In fact, the closest thing he could feel to kindness for it was the faint feeling that since it was _technically_ alive he didn't want its blood on his hands.

He wanted to kill it sometimes, quite often in fact, but it was never lingering. He just really wanted to make sure that it stopped... well, being Kyuubi. Stopped killing, stopped mocking him, stopped being pointlessly cruel. Just stopped.

Really, he never wanted to inspire that look of dawning understanding and terror. As if his voice proved to it that the world was a cruel place, and that kindness was merely a way to get the other person to present their back to the first one's dagger.

It wasn't a nice thought, to realize that your voice meant such a thing for another. Even if you didn't like them.

He supposed that he might've liked it if Orochimaru thought of his voice like that, but the Kyuubi was... different. Like comparing a typhoon with war. There was casualties and cruelties committed by both, but could you really hate the typhoon? Fear it, certainly. But hate it?

The Kyuubi was a natural disaster. Destroying things was just what it did. It'd be like the ants calling the ant-eater evil. It just didn't hold any impact.

It was strange, he mused to himself, how he could be so horrified of its presence and yet feel so calm as he stood against it.

He supposed that it was simply his place to be.

Standing against the unstoppable, defying the odds, and standing in the path of monsters.

Besides, it might feel horrifying and it might be immensely powerful, but it was just him.

He could beat the shit out of himself any day.

"How-...?" The Kyuubi whispered in something disturbingly like his own voice, but darker somehow.

"Dunno, but I'm not going to let you run around without a leash." Naruto said as his mind reeled, not really certain of where the words were coming from, but speaking them with conviction and certainty nonetheless. "You're my responsibility."

"The seal-! It must have absorbed-..." The Kyuubi trailed off. "This is impossible. It can't be done!"

Naruto shrugged. "Don't care."

And with that he moved, the sword in his hand feeling impossibly light, despite its size.

Just as he stabbed his own body through the stomach, a part of him wondered in suspended confusion if this counted as suicide.

Ripping the sword back out, he blinked at the lack of a wound.

The Kyuubi toppled, and through sheer stupidity, Naruto grabbed onto his own falling body. There was a very small part of Naruto, the survivor, who said that such an action was absolutely retarded.

But, for a moment, all he could see was Haku, bleeding, dying.

"It's okay to be scared." He found himself saying to the demon in his arms.

"Why-...?" It stared up at him in awe, a brief glimmer of hope.

"Because the wind should never be caged."

It made sense.

It was strange, to feel so certain that this would be for the better, that he shouldn't be banishing the Kyuubi back to its cage. It'd killed so many, it was so powerful, it wouldn't care if it killed hundreds more, but even so.

The wind shouldn't be caged.

The Kyuubi stared at him for a moment, and he wondered if that had actually been tears he'd seen in its eyes or merely a trick of the light, then it began to laugh. Slow, relieved, almost mournful.

It was the sound of it donning a collar, Naruto realized belatedly. It was the sound of the wind bowing to its master.

XXX

Kakashi rushed onto the scene. He was fairly sure that the seal hadn't cracked and that the Kyuubi wasn't loose, but he really really really wanted to make sure.

Sasuke lay in a crater, his broken body testament to their horrible struggle, barely clinging to consciousness. Naruto sat beside him, his face a blank calmness as he seemed to be almost basking in the last rays of sunlight, but there was something fundamentally _wrong_ about him.

Naruto could be quiet, Naruto could reflect, Naruto could be calm, and yet Kakashi's entire body screamed that this wasn't Naruto, no matter how much it might look like him, because his eyes were a slitted crimson.

The Kyuubi? But then why wasn't it killing Sasuke? Why was it merely sitting there, waiting?

"Where's Naruto?" He questioned the monster wearing his student's flesh.

The monster blinked, it's eyes darting over to an empty spot of air before landing on him once again, eyes a fraction wider than before. Then it calmed. "I see. You cannot see him?" Its voice was akin to curious.

"'See him'?" Kakashi frowned at the monster.

It shrugged off his question. "Uchiha, you can see him, can you not?"

There was a pained whimper that might've been interpreted as an affirmative from the broken body.

It tilted its head, pondering this for a moment, before shrugging. "It doesn't matter. Hatake, carry the Uchiha. He needs medical attention, and I'm not a pack-mule." It spat out the last word with disgust.

Kakashi was confused, very confused, but he knew that the Kyuubi had a point. Sasuke was in desperate need of help, and they really should get going.

But still, to escort the Kyuubi into Konoha? That was bound to cause trouble.

The monster turned again towards the empty spot in the air, frowning for a moment.

"I will not harm anyone in your village unless in self-defense." It finally relented, inclining its head in submission to the empty spot of air, before sighing. "You're far too kind sometimes, master." It listened, chuckling softly to something only it could hear. "That is true, I suppose."

Kakashi was if possible, even more confused than previously, but he was a professional, and the monster had just stated that it wouldn't harm anyone, so Sasuke became the main priority.

He just hoped that he wouldn't regret this.

XXX

Tsunade nodded to the normally lazy boy who was seemingly on the verge of leaping to his feet in a fit of nervous energy. "He'll live." She stated in a tired voice.

Akimichi Chouji had been a close call, but she'd managed. Hyuuga Neji had been a lot easier, but still unsettlingly close to death.

What of Naruto?

Biting her lip, she turned towards the messenger who'd just showed up.

"Hatake Kakashi has reported in, Hokage-sama."

She glared at him. "What of Naruto?"

"It's..." The messenger hesitated, obviously looking for words. "It's complicated, Hokage-sama, but there doesn't seem to be any immediate harm to him."

Tsunade breathed out, her heart calming down. "Take me to them." She ordered.

By the time they arrived, one thing became clear, Sasuke was injured. Badly injured.

This didn't really bother Tsunade very much as it was his idiocy that'd caused the whole thing, but she supposed that she couldn't very well let him pass away only after he'd arrived in Konoha.

Still, the moment she lay eyes on Naruto, she knew that something was wrong.

He wasn't Naruto. It was the Kyuubi, wrapped in his skin.

Her eyes widening in horror, she wondered why nobody had noticed.

"Ah, Tsunade." The Kyuubi started with Naruto's voice. "Master is fine, don't worry."

"'Master'?" She ground out through gritted teeth. What kind of game was the monster playing?

The Kyuubi nodded. "He's foolish, he's reckless, he's naïve, but he's my master." It paused, glancing towards an empty spot in the air. "It is the truth." It defended itself.

Tsunade glared towards Kakashi. "What's going on?" She growled angrily.

Her answer was a confused shrug. "It asked me if I couldn't see him, told me that Sasuke could."

"'See him'?" That might be really bad. What if Naruto wouldn't be around anymore?

"Master is a soul." The Kyuubi explained. "It has to do with what else was caught in my seal, and how my seal was designed."

"'Caught in your seal'?" Kakashi asked with a frown of his own.

"The Shinigami lost an arm." The Kyuubi stated, a brief, almost smug smile flickering across its lips. "And the seal absorbed it into master." It paused, listening. "I would suppose you're more shinigami than ghost, master."

Tsunade's eyes widened. "'Ghost'?" She choked out in horror.

"It's similar." The Kyuubi admitted with a frown. "But a mere wandering soul would slowly cease to be, its chain being eaten. Master doesn't have a chain, thus he's not a ghost." It paused and turned to the empty spot of air once again, an amused smirk touching its lips. "Don't worry master, your sword would cut any ghost you might encounter. You're a shinigami after all."

XXX

**A/n: The big thing here would've been to force Naruto into a _spirit_ form, rather than the usual 'he gets a sword and all the abilities'. In Bleach, they're all souls without bodies wandering the Earth, they can't use their abilities whilst in a body made of flesh.**

**The idea continued into asking what a sword that is part of a soul could actually cut. Perhaps only things that did not belong on the body? Like Orochimaru and his 'immortality', or Pein and his Six Paths, maybe even Cursed Seals. It could've been interesting.**


	4. Team Fishnet

Team Fishnet

**Summary: Kakashi refuses to even test Team 7. Team 7 meet your new instructor, Anko. Crack**

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

XXX

The Hokage had tried everything. Bribes, threats, guilt-tripping, confiscating of porn-collection, ordering, nagging, and just generally releasing amazing charisma in the ninja's direction. None of it had worked. No matter what he said, no matter what he did, Kakashi refused to even _attempt_ to take on that team.

Sarutobi sighed heavily. He'd been so certain that he could shove the Uchiha prodigy and the Jinchuuriki at the porn-loving 'copy-cat', that he'd never really considered who _else_ he might be forced to consider taking on that team and now he didn't really have anyone to choose from.

Most of the jounin was away, doing long-term missions that couldn't be aborted without immense consequences. The few he had left had either been assigned teams of their own, or they were simply too... anti-Kyuubi for him to trust them anywhere near the cheerful boy.

As he paged through file upon file, looking for anyone he might've missed in his search, the ancient man had to restrain the urge to bash his head against the tabletop until someone else put all of this godforsaken paperwork away. Or lit it on fire. He was okay with that. In fact, fire sounded wonderful. He hadn't lit anything on fire in ages. Maybe he could just... no. That was a slippery slope, and it wouldn't be long before he'd simply lit anyone who brought him the piles of paper on fire as well.

The Sandaime Hokage blinked.

Mitarashi Anko. Special-jounin, not on any missions currently, and with a distinct need to prove herself worthy of trust that the Council never saw fit to give. Sure there was the ridiculously slim chance of her being a sleeper agent for Orochimaru, but he found the idea of him having such an obvious one quite laughable. Regardless, she was loyal to the Hat, was more than qualified for her rank, and... had a thing for drinking people's blood.

That last one was probably irrelevant.

He looked at her file again. An expert with seduction techniques.

Suddenly recalling Naruto's own variation on the henge, the old man couldn't help but smile.

Hurriedly writing up the needed forms, he stamped his approval.

XXX

Iruka glared a bit more at the assigned teachers for the genin teams.

Whilst he couldn't be sure that her reputation was all that accurate, he was fairly certain that at least parts of it was true. And that was more than enough to cause his ire. He did _not_ want to expose Naruto to someone like Mitarashi, but unfortunately that wasn't his call to make.

He called out the teams, ignoring the cheering when it could be ignored, yelling at those that couldn't be ignored, and directed his former students towards their respective teachers.

Until Mitarashi Anko came flying in through a window and landed next to him with a grace that almost made him consider if crazy people could simply defy the laws of physics at will. Because that would certainly explain a _lot_.

Sasuke looked annoyed at the display, or perhaps that the teacher chosen for them was female – in his defense, the boy had had some seriously bad experiences with fangirls over the years. Sakura looked appalled by her choice in clothing, or lack of clothing as it were. And Naruto was cheering enthusiastically at having a teacher that would actually break a window by jumping through it – Iruka desperately hoped that she wouldn't give him any ideas.

XXX

Naruto was very pleased with how their genin-test had turned out.

First Anko had scared them all shitless – not one of his proudest moments, but Sasuke had looked kind of uncomfortable as well, so it was fine – then she'd asked them to introduce themselves – and probably scarred them all mentally for life from her own introduction – and finally she'd asked them to show her their skills.

Sakura proved herself reasonably skilled with the Transformation, Clone, and Body Replacement Techniques, but completely messed up everything else. Sasuke proved himself capable of using the same, but also pulled off a really big fireball of some kind, and then basically aced everything else. And Naruto himself, well, he'd impressed her with the Kage Bunshin, messed up most of everything else, and then made her smile this really creepy smile with his Sexy no Jutsu.

They'd passed, she'd started laughing madly about showing all those fools – he really didn't know what she was talking about as he'd been hiding behind Sakura at the time, the special-jounin was _scary_ – and then she'd explained what being a fresh-out-of-the-academy-genin really meant.

Sure, that had seriously put a damper on his mood, but it wasn't like he was going to whine about it until he could learn to _dodge_ those very sharp kunai of hers. He didn't care if his blood tasted like the ramen of the gods themselves, her willingness to lick it off of him was enough to make him seriously consider replacing his precious red-stuff with soap-water. Nobody liked getting soap in their mouths, it tasted horribly.

XXX

Sasuke was... reconsidering his original dismissal of their teacher. Sure, she was clearly insane, but she was willing to be honest with them, if only to have more excuses to draw blood from a very loud blond, and she didn't seem to be utterly smitten with him being the last Uchiha.

It wasn't that he didn't approve of being recognized, or that he was humble by any stretch of the word, but that crazy woman seemed more interested in scaring them senseless and then beating it into the idiot's head that he was to follow her orders or she'd string him up in his underwear in the girl's side of the onsen.

Sasuke could approve of such ruthless tactics. In fact, it made him feel kind of warm and fuzzy inside.

Still, he was stuck on a team with one of his more obsessive fangirls, a blond idiot with huge chakra reserves, and a crazy special-jounin with a thing for sadistic cruelty. But since the first two were far too busy being terrified of the latter to actually annoy him, he came to the conclusion that this might actually be a good thing.

XXX

Sakura was visibly shaken by the time she stumbled into her room and collapsed on the bed.

She'd been placed on the same team as Sasuke, but since she'd been too busy playing human shield with Naruto and since their teacher was insane, bloodthirsty, sadistic, and generally creepy as all hell, she hadn't even gotten a chance to talk to the dark-haired boy.

Then again, she found herself somewhat impressed despite herself at Naruto's ability to avoid getting killed by the crazy special-jounin. It took some skill to be able to keep another person between him and a very enthusiastic jounin-level pursuer for several hours straight. She'd hardly been moving at all and she still felt like she'd run a mile. The boy's stamina was mindboggling.

He was still an idiot, but she could appreciate his idiocy as the idiocy of someone who'd simply been far too busy running the hell away from people to really learn to stop and think things through.

She briefly considered mentioning this theory to their new teacher, and came to the conclusion that it would most likely result in Naruto getting tied to a chair and forced to think philosophical questions about the meaning of life. It would be absolute torture for the poor blond.

She smirked happily into her pillow. She could hardly _wait_.

XXX

Kurenai stared at the ragged genin that made Team 7 and tried to understand exactly how painting a fence could've resulted in them looking as if they'd been fighting for their lives.

"The snakes..." Sakura mumbled in a horrified voice. "They're _everywhere_..." The two boys next to her shuddered at her words, before glancing warily towards their teacher.

The genjutsu master blinked, starting to connect the dots.

"You attacked your own students with snakes in the middle of a D-ranked mission?" She asked her old friend disbelievingly.

"Should teach them not to whine about being bored." Anko grinned happily. "Besides, it's not like they failed."

Kurenai glanced back at her own team, who seemed like they were thanking their lucky stars that at least _their_ instructor wasn't insane, and then looked at her best friend once more.

She'd never really considered what Anko's effect would be on children, but now she was going to have to get really drunk to make sure she never thought of what it would be like if the special-jounin ever reproduced.

XXX

Teuchi stared surprised at his best customer and his teammates before finally stating the first thing that came to mind.

"You kids look like you've been pushed off a cliff."

"Survival training." Naruto whimpered as he attempted to drown himself in ramen.

"Were you practicing surviving from falling off cliffs?" He joked as he continued with his work.

"Amongst other things..." The girl said in a small voice that made it obvious that cliffs had been the least of their worries, and that she'd rather not talk about it.

The dark-haired boy shuddered as if remembering whatever these 'other things' had been. "The snakes..." The boy whimpered quietly to himself. "Why are there so many snakes?"

Now, Teuchi knew very well that the boy was an Uchiha, and their views on showing weakness, so he was starting to wonder exactly how sadistically traumatizing their instructor really was.

Then he remembered her name, and everything connected to her name, and suddenly he decided that maybe the first round was on the house.

XXX

Sarutobi looked at the council members glaring at him with varying degrees of anger and wondered to himself if he could lure them all into a room filled with his paperwork, and then get away without repercussions when the whole thing burned to the ground.

He sincerely doubted it, but it was a very nice thought.

"Hokage, the law states that only a jounin may take on a genin team. For what reason have you assigned Mitarashi, who is merely a special-jounin, to Team 7?" One of the members spoke up.

"Whilst her rank is lower, she is more than capable enough to handle a team of genin. As for her loyalties, which I'm sure is the true reason for this meeting, she is loyal to the Hat. That is all that is needed."

Of course, none of the members would agree with something as pathetically vague as that, and as outraged voices raised all around him, the Sandaime began to absentmindedly consider how he would manage to lure so many people into a room filled with papers.

XXX

Naruto sat down heavily on the ground as another mission was finally over and done with. He hated that cat. He hated it with a passion. He hated that they were forced to protect the cat from giant snakes, in order to not fail the mission, even more.

Still, he could hardly call it boring. Traumatizing, yes. Exhausting, yes. Boring, no.

He glanced over at the soft thuds next to him. Sasuke was breathing heavily, and Sakura was halfway to unconsciousness.

It'd taken them several weeks, but they'd finally gotten more or less used to their sadistic instructor's enthusiastic training methods. They still tried not to think too much about snakes, due to trauma, but they were no longer all that concerned with anything else coming from Anko's mouth.

Naruto made a face as he looked up at the sky. He really didn't think he needed the lecture on where babies come from, especially not with so many horrible _pictures_. Then again, with him being thoroughly disturbed by this information, his enthusiastic pursuit of a date with Sakura... well, it'd kind of gone down the drain, which the girl actually responded positively to for some reason.

Sure, he still liked her lots, and tried to remind her of that whenever she looked down. But after all that, he really didn't want to go on a date with _anyone_, even if he did like them.

Other than this, he'd begun to learn patience, which was a new concept to him. Yeah, he could understand the joy of waiting to see a trap he'd rigged spring on someone, but the thought of listening to people so that you could have the knowledge to _set_ that trap... well, that was a new experience for him.

Then, as they'd had a talk about stuff they should all have known since the academy, Anko had thrown her arms into the air and asked him what the hell he'd been doing for all that time. He'd answered that he'd been busy pranking people. She'd responded that she wanted to see a prank worthy of skipping so many important classes.

So he'd repainted the Hokage monument again, only this time with easily solvable paint – they would recognize his handiwork anyways, better to make his punishment easier.

When he'd reported back in – after having lost ANBU – Anko had stared at him with this really odd expression, and then she'd hugged him. It'd been very soft.

Ignoring the exact reasons for _why_ it's been so soft, Naruto looked up at the sky. Anko's 'survival training' had grown to include general pranking of the population of Konoha. Yes, they'd started out pranking civilians due to his teammates inexperience in the subject, but just yesterday they'd been tasked to infiltrate and prank the Hyuuga compound.

Sakura had been utterly scandalized by the idea of pranking people being classified as 'training', but then she'd realized that Naruto had been dodging ANBU patrols for an hour, because they were still trying to get him to clean the monument. Sasuke hadn't complained vocally, though he had been frowning a lot, until he'd also seen the potential of such training.

Of course, Anko wouldn't let them prank people in the same ways, so they were forced to continually think of new traps to spring at the poor unsuspecting inhabitants. They'd used falling fish, moving wallets, stink-bombs, porno-mags, paint of endlessly different colors, and string, lots and lots of string. Until that one time when Naruto had almost been exposed and shot a Sexy no Jutsu in some old guys face in order to get away clean. Then something else had started.

Not wanting to up the dangers of their pranks beyond minor inconvenience to their victims, they realized that messing with people's heads were a _lot_ of fun. It was, in fact, so much fun that the three of them had shown up in varying amounts of fishnet one morning – Anko had looked freaked out until they'd started laughing, then she'd blinked, grinned, and looked kind of proud, before releasing her snakes on them.

They didn't repeat that again – even if they did get the nickname 'Team Fishnet' for it – but they did begin to really consider to what extent you could mess with someone's head. So far, Sasuke and Naruto had gazed longingly into each other's eyes in a public place, Sakura had gotten into an argument with Sasuke about which of Anko or Naruto was better in bed – it'd been a sparring match in a bedroom environment, using nothing but pillows, and of course Anko had cheated – Naruto had been seen eating dango instead of ramen, Sasuke had picked a fight with Konohamaru with lots of childish name-calling, and Sakura had flirted _shamelessly_ with an unknown blonde bombshell who was eating at Ichiraku's.

Konohagakure was in a state of disbelieving shock. This made absolutely no sense.

Naruto chuckled at the thought. Messing with people's heads were a lot more fun than merely pranking them. Who'd have thought it?

XXX

She'd started out wanting to impress the village and prove her loyalties, but once she'd met them she'd come to realize that maybe she wasn't all that suited for babysitting of any kind. Unless, of course, you wanted the baby-thingy to be traumatized for _life_. Then she'd simply wanted to train them into something that would survive anything the world threw at them.

And then she'd actually started to pay attention, and belatedly realized that she'd always wanted a family. And here stood a little sister to corrupt and two brothers to fight. One was the brain, one was the brawn, and one was the clinically insane.

God, but she loved the idiocy of that utter moron.

Smirking slightly at the thought, Anko sat upon the roof, looking down at the relaxing forms below.

One was an inspiration, one was a tactician, and the final one was always ready to follow – even if that was mostly because she'd made a habit of sending a particularly vicious snake after him whenever he defied orders for personal glory.

They were a well-suited team, and if she could just convince the Orange Wonder that he should give up on that horrible jumpsuit, as well as teach his friends that gloriously potential-filled Sexy no Jutsu of his, then she'd have a team capable of infiltrating anything, gain a ludicrous amount of information – and then blow the place sky high if they so wanted – before disappearing back to base.

The fact that she sometimes just wanted to drag them into a great big hug and forget about her troubles... well, she'd only given into that urge that one time when she'd gotten really drunk. Or whenever they did something amazing that she'd never even thought of, like painting the Hokage's nose purple when he was taking a nap in his office.

God, but she loved that kid and his wonderful ideas of insanity.

XXX

Whilst Konohamaru had started out stalking Naruto for his treatment as a person rather than a link to the Hokage, he'd quickly come to the conclusion that the boy's team was insane.

The dark-haired ass would either glare at him until he disappeared, greet him with a devious smile that could only spell trouble for the rest of the village, or just spontaneously drop-kick him out of nowhere. Konohamaru had heard of bipolar people, but the guy was clearly a nutcase.

Then there was the flat-chested girl who would either walk around like an overworked zombie until someone poked her – because then she'd punch them _through_ the road – or start talking in a loud voice using weird words that made it sound like she was hinting at something completely different. There was a sort of comfort there, she was female, and males weren't supposed to understand them – only be able to predict their moods with enough accuracy to keep themselves away from the painful interaction with their fists. But she was still unusually weird.

Then there was the fact that Naruto had actually changed a bit since their first meeting. He seemed... more ninja-ish now. Sure, he still pranked the hell out of people, and sure he still didn't act like any of the grown-ups, but there was a devious cleverness in him that was being slowly coaxed into life, and his growing paranoia was rapidly becoming something akin to a sixth sense.

Finally, there was the reason for all of the team's insanity. Their leader, Anko.

Konohamaru didn't know much about Anko, just that all the grown-ups he'd ever asked had told him to stay away from her. Naturally, he'd latched onto her without hesitation on their first meeting, just to spite them. As a repercussion he was forced to deal with snakes, and he kept getting dragged into pranks that were actually astonishingly artful if you ever stopped to think about it.

He'd had lots of time to think about it since Naruto would usually distract them for long enough to get him to safety, and even if he was caught, the worst thing he was subjected to was being grounded. Which was really something nobody ever really bothered to reinforce for some reason. And because of this, he could stop and think a lot.

Most of his peers were quite insistent on showing off with everything they did, and most of the grown-ups seemed to share this view, but Team 7 and its members didn't seem to care at all that they weren't using any cool techniques in their exploits. In fact, they almost seemed to take pride in the lack of them.

Konohamaru had been really confused by this, until Naruto mentioned offhandedly that if there was a jutsu that could paint the Hokage monument in neon color then it wasn't a challenge to climb the entire way up there and do the entire thing with a brush and bucket in the small time-frame that was left open by the ANBU patrols.

It wasn't training if it wasn't challenging.

He nodded to himself, he could understand such reasoning.

He just prayed that the scary fishnet-lady would stop throwing snakes at him whenever she decided that he was getting too noisy.

XXX

Sakura was actually cheering with glee as the bridge-builder came into the room.

This utter lapse in her normally more sane apprehension to potentially dangerous situations, was easily explained by one thing, there was no way their teacher would actively interfere on a mission where death was technically an actual possibility for her students.

Basically, there would be no more snakes. No more. Snakes. Never again. Scaly, evil slithering things that hissed. No more! Freedom!

Naruto seemed more enthusiastic about the prospect of doing a higher rank mission than the lack of snakes, but that was mostly because he hadn't actually thought that far yet. She'd give him ten minutes, the idiot was slow on the uptake, but he _was_ definitely improving. And Sasuke... well, he was still confuse-...

Sasuke's lips started twitching upwards in barely contained joy. There we go, took him long enough. She really was the intelligent one in the group, not the cunning one, or the plan-maker, simply the one who could weigh all negatives and positives about a decided action and decide whether it was worth the potential gains that would result in a success.

She was intelligence, Naruto didn't seem to ever think _inside_ the box, and Sasuke wasn't bad at going along with the flow and improvising a bit along the way.

Naturally, their client seemed fairly uncertain about their abilities, and Naruto was starting to slow down his enthusiasm to try and understand why his teammates were so _happy_ all of a sudden. The Hokage also looked confused, but then, nobody had ever really bothered to explain to him why they showed up looking like they'd fought their way through the Forest of Death whenever he sent them out to pick potatoes.

Sakura actually didn't mind the Forest that much. Mostly because Naruto had figured out a way to predict when their snake-crazed teacher would attack them when they were there, which had resulted in a lot of quiet comfortable relaxation in between her attacks. Though, she had to admit that she'd usually be pleased to eat just about anything the moment they returned to civilization.

Naruto suddenly blinked, his mouth falling open, and then a smile started to creep its way onto his face.

"YES! Freedom!" He laughed the laugh of a hopelessly deranged lunatic. "No more _snakes_!" The boy was actually jumping up and down as tears of relieved joy streamed down his face.

The rest of the room stared at him with extremely varying degrees of disbelief. His teammates weren't surprised at all. The Hokage was looking very confused, and then started to glance between Team 7 and their instructor, before his eyes started to widen in something akin to fascination, horror, and pity. The bridge-builder looked seriously unsettled by the deranged-laughter part. And Anko was looking like she was considering attacking the loud blond with more snakes, just to prove to him that he'd _never_ be free from her.

Anko started to cackle madly.

The two uninitiated blinked in confusion as the three genin suddenly ceased to be. Disappearing from sight through sheer reflex at the sound of what usually resulted in their pain.

With enough motivation, the stars are up for grabs. Utterly defying the laws of physics into simply being anywhere _else_ entirely at a special moment in time was easy. As long as you didn't think too much about it, because that would undoubtedly give you a headache.

XXX

If, back at the academy, someone had told anyone of the current members of Team 7 that whilst waiting for their first C-ranked mission to start, Sasuke would sit by the gates and whistle peacefully to himself... well, to say the least, that person would _not_ be believed.

Sasuke didn't seem to mind all the odd looks he was getting from guards and civilians alike, instead giving the impression that he was just utterly high on life.

Which was crazy-talk. Uchihas didn't get high on life, they got high on drugs, and possibly on killing stuff. An Uchiha that got high on life was a shame to his entire clan. Thankfully, Sasuke was kind of the only non-traitorous Uchiha still alive, which made him sort of immune to stuff like that.

When Sakura showed up and tried to join in with his pleasant tune, only to fail utterly, the last Uchiha did the strangest thing. He started to try and teach her how to whistle _better_.

Never let it be said that the boy, who'd figured out a way to incorporate an unusually foul-smelling fish into a trap to be used against civilians, didn't care about his fellow humans. Hell, the fact that he'd once tried to keep Anko from drinking too much and nailing someone with sharp objects ought to at least put him on the verge of sainthood.

By the time their final teammate came into view, they were looking so peaceful with their whistling that if someone put flowers in their hair it really wouldn't look out of place.

Naruto handed over the flowers with a blissful smile as he joined in with his most wonderful teammates who were filled to the brim with so much patience and kindness that it could make a holy man stare in awe.

When Anko and their client finally showed up, they found the three of them sitting together, with flowers in their hair, whistling a cheerful tune that spoke of hope and love and that the world really was just as wonderful as ramen.

Needless to say, the bridge-builder looked very uncomfortable, and Anko was starting to twitch towards nearest sharp object with which to harm them.

By the time that she'd managed to herd them all out through the gates, there were a lot of rumors cropping up about Team 7 having gone absolutely bonkers.

XXX

They'd all known.

You don't really survive Anko's ambushes without gaining some level of extreme situational awareness. Besides, Naruto was paranoid, and that puddle had clearly been looking at him funny.

Needless to say, when the Demon Brothers had jumped out with their fancy chains, the genin had responded without mercy, and with horrifying ferocity. Kind of like that time when they'd failed to protect Tora from the snakes, and the cat had turned the poor reptiles into what looked a lot like bacon slices... only with more guts, and blood, and scales, and bones, and other things that had been difficult to identify.

The point of the matter was that Anko somehow kept her innocent students from killing the poor unsuspecting brothers in what might be classified as a paranoid belief that nothing was actually disabled until it had more wounds than not-wounds in its flesh – and even then, you might want to burn it, just to make sure. Which basically resulted in the Demon Brothers being eternally grateful, and happily supplying them with any of the information they needed, as long as all of those crazy, flower-loving, homicidal, evil midgets were kept at bay.

Tazuna had looked horrified that children could even think of doing such things to people, but then they'd started to try and put flowers in his hair and beckoned innocently about becoming one of them, and the bridge-builder had started to drink _heavily_. When confronted with his lies, he'd pulled a sob-story, and everyone had come to the conclusion that they'd already walked all the way out here, so they might as well go through with it. He also made sure that Anko was between him and the children whenever such a thing was possible.

In the end, they'd moved on, not really caring all that much about the fact that even Anko was starting to wonder if maybe she'd gone a bit too far with their training, and making a mental note to herself to make sure that they'd see some sort of psychiatrist the moment they returned to Konoha.

Then the mist rolled in, and Naruto almost killed a white rabbit, only to grab it and try to extract information from it, using wonderful gems such as 'who sent you?' and 'don't play that innocent-crap on me!' as well as 'how much are they paying you?' and 'where are you hiding your carrots?'.

Thankfully, this random bout of insanity – hopefully springing from stress and fatigue, and not from the fact that he really _was_ that bad – was interrupted by a giant sword that came spinning through the air.

None of them got hit, though Anko was wondering if this was because the boy's spontaneous information-gathering had made its thrower hesitate for a moment. Hell, _she'd_ forgotten what they were doing there for a moment, so it really wouldn't be all that surprising. Not that there was any way the brat had actually thought of that before doing it, but hey, nobody's perfect.

And then the Demon of the Mist made his appearance, and scared the living daylight out of pretty much everyone present.

The guy could use killing intent, that's for sure.

Then came a fight between two true ninja, whilst the genin took up defensive positions around their client.

Of course, when Zabuza found himself face-to-face with a very, _very_ well-developed girl in the nude, only to be attacked by a virtual hale of kunai and shuriken and the wires attached to them whilst he was still confused about that, only for the final member of the trio to actually manage to sneak a genjutsu in through his defenses... well, she _had_ been forcing them to work as a team, or die trying, for a month or so... but she could honestly say that she hadn't expected this.

The genjutsu hadn't really done much, but it'd been enough for Anko to get back on her feet and finish the job.

At least until that hunter-nin showed up.

Anko didn't really enjoy that, but she'd gone along with it until Naruto had rushed after that damn rabbit again, shouting something about him being onto its schemes. She was hesitatingly willing to ignore that for as long as he didn't call the schemes hare-brained. There were just some puns that should never be told.

It took Anko almost an hour to realize that the hunter-nin was a lie. Of course, if anyone asked why it'd taken her so long, she could excuse herself with that at least she'd managed to walk away from a fight with the Demon of the Mist, and that they could hardly blame her for not being her analytical best at the moment.

XXX

**A/n: I don't think there's anyone that truly dislikes Anko in the fandom, she's too entertaining. But I find myself unable to write more on this story, which is a bit sad, as it was very entertaining to write.**


	5. Naruko, the Beginnings

Naruko, the Beginnings

**Summary: On his training trip with Jiraiya, Naruto has a 'must press button'-moment. Time-travel, gender-bending. Humor, fluff?**

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

XXX

Naruto had simply asked himself what would happen if he tampered a little with a summoning scroll, an explosive note, and an average storage scroll. It had been an experiment to see if it was possible to actually summon explosions at other people.

It seemed unfortunately apparent that it wasn't.

Well, not for him at least. He was pretty sure he could've pulled it off if the Kyuubi's seal hadn't somehow gotten sucked into the array, adding a _lot_ of demon chakra that really wasn't in his calculations.

The nine-tailed fox demon had roared in agony, something had _shifted_ about the seals, and then everything had gone black in what he assumed to be a very large explosion.

Most of his experiments ended in explosions. It was just another part of what it meant to be him.

Groaning unhappily, Naruto slowly peeled his face from the ground. He really should fix that part of being him. He didn't like it. It hurt a lot to be in the center of those things.

The sky looked blue, so at least he hadn't gone blind. He hurt all over, so he probably hadn't lost any limbs. And there was a distinct urge to ground his teacher into paste for allowing him to experiment so freely, so he couldn't have hit his head _too_ hard.

Crawling to his feet however, something seemed off about his balance, making it somewhat difficult to stand.

Then he looked down.

It was at this time that Naruto actually started to get a bit confused.

He was pretty sure he hadn't invoked any of his more perverted techniques, yet there they were, barely held back by a somewhat roughened-up shirt.

He had breasts.

Feeling a bit confused about how this had come to pass, Naruto did the sensible thing. He dispelled the technique.

He still had breasts. And he was pretty sure... yeah, that place didn't have anything at all.

So... he was in effect, female. Without the usage of any techniques, and completely unintentionally.

Glancing around to see if he would be getting into trouble for this, Naruto came to an even more startling realization.

Waking up as a girl, whilst strange and not something he enjoyed, it was a form that he'd taken advantage of before, and so he wasn't all too worried about it. His surroundings however, were a different thing entirely.

After all, exactly how big an explosion must he have caused for it to _blow him all the way to Konoha_?

Checking that all of his limbs were intact once again, just to make sure, Naruto looked at the village with some uncertainty.

He'd promised Ero-sennin that he'd come with him for training. But now he'd accidentally returned to Konoha, without his permission, or even any kind of heads-up.

Other than what must've been an explosion big enough to sink an island.

He briefly asked himself if the old pervert was still alive, but quickly decided that the guy was far too similar to a cockroach to be killed off by something as mundane as random fire-power. No matter how _massive_ said fire-power might be.

Shrugging to himself, Naruto began walking towards Konoha.

He'd never make it back to where he'd been before Jiraiya moved on, and Konoha would most likely be the first place the old pervert would look for him. So, he supposed he was taking a small vacation from his temporary training-exile.

XXX

Not really having any papers with him, and being generally not good with formal entries, Naruto had made his way into town in the most time-effective way he knew of.

Stealthily sneaking in the back way was pretty easy since nothing seemed to have really changed all that much since he'd left. And though he knew that Tsunade would probably smack him around later for not announcing himself or whatever, he really didn't feel like trying to convince the guards to let him in when he was stuck in this female shape.

Nothing had changed about his hometown, true. But there was something _off_ about the village. Naruto couldn't tell what it was, but it seemed to stretch all over the place.

And then he saw something that turned his blood to ice.

The third Hokage, Sarutobi, was walking down the street, chuckling in that carefree way of his as a score of children raced by him.

The third Hokage was _dead_.

Naruto had been to his funeral.

There was something really, really, _really_ messed up going on here.

Ignoring the part of him that was urging him to simply rush down there and tackle the old man in a hug strong enough to crush bones, Naruto tried to piece together the few bits of information he had.

He'd been working with seals. Something had gone wrong. He'd woken up outside Konoha. There was something strange about the village that he couldn't put his finger on. And the third Hokage looked very much _alive_.

There was the possibility of him having gotten himself caught in an illusion technique of some sort, but why they would go to all this trouble to confuse him, he really couldn't tell. Besides, he'd tried to dispel his own illusion the moment he'd arrived. Then again, the illusion might be touchy about which one of them he was actually trying to dispel, so there was the possibility that he'd overlooked something there.

He tried every way of dispelling illusions that he could think of.

Some of them were painful.

The third Hokage had stopped to talk to someone, in that ever-friendly way that he'd always displayed when not in his office. Most of what Naruto remembered from him being in an office was him looking like he knew that a headache was sneaking up on him. A headache with cymbals.

Time-travel.

The thought nailed Naruto straight between the eyes, hitting him with enough force to make his knees buckle.

He'd gone back in time?

As he considered that impossibility, he started to realize why Konoha looked so odd.

Buildings he'd seen crash down during Orochimaru's attack, and that had later been repaired or replaced, still stood where they'd been standing before. Shops that he'd seen close, still remained open, whilst shops he'd seen open since then, weren't there.

This was an older Konoha. And in it were still those who he would call his precious people.

Blinking to himself as a sudden thought struck him, Naruto took off towards a new destination.

He found a boy with blond hair and a happy grin, eating ramen by his favorite ramen-stand. And suddenly Naruto started to have this absolutely certain feeling that this was probably not good.

He remembered having talked to Jiraiya about time-travel at some point. The old man had started out by assuring him that it was impossible to go back in time, but that if he ever managed to do so he probably shouldn't talk to himself. The reason that he'd presented for this advice had been that someone had given him that advice, with an explanation that gave him a headache, but which could be summarized in "Don't do it, you might cease to exist."

Naruto had thought about that for a long time, trying to figure out how he could cease to exist from just talking to himself.

Until he'd realized that if he were to _kill_ his younger self, he would never grow old, and so couldn't go back in time, and therefore he'd never die... that had given him a headache, but it'd also convinced him not to meet himself. Or, at least not do so when his younger self could see that he was an older Naruto.

Naruto was in a female shape. A female shape that he'd used several times for knocking out perverts.

He was also still wearing orange.

Naruto might not be the smartest of people, but he could still figure stuff out on his own. And considering his eternal curiosity, there was no way that the younger boy wouldn't try to confront him about it.

This called for drastic measures.

Quickly retreating out of sight from any place where he might risk discovery by people who knew him. Naruto sat down to think.

He needed some sort of disguise, but he couldn't keep a transformation technique going for long enough to serve as a viable one. So, he would need something else. New clothes, maybe some of that paint that Ino always put on her face, a decent name that he wouldn't forget, and a believable story for being in Konoha.

Clothes weren't really an issue as he wasn't _completely_ broke, but he'd never used that face paint before, so that might be problematic. He also wasn't very good at lying, so that was going to be a pain.

XXX

As he'd been locating suitable clothes – and spying on people when they were painting their faces – Naruto had realized that there was a very important question he should answer.

What time was it?

His younger self had looked young, but it was difficult to tell your own age from looks since that just made everything all that more complicated. So now he'd laid hands on an even better way of determining the time in which he'd landed.

Newspapers were wondrous things, and if his memory was to be trusted, Team 7 had just come home from Wave country.

Having satisfied his desire to know, Naruto was faced with another question as the sun's rays began to wane.

Where was he going to sleep?

He couldn't sleep at his own home, due to the other Naruto that resided there, and he couldn't very well ask anyone to take in a perfect stranger without any explanation.

Grumbling to himself about the problems that resulted from time-travel, Naruto allowed himself to drift around town in his new disguise, feeling playfully content as people he knew walked right by him without a second glance.

He remembered Ero-sennin once mentioning that nobody really noticed things they weren't looking for. They'd seen Naruto walking around in his male form. They saw an attractive blond-haired girl with clothes walking by them on the street, not flirting with anyone. The girl didn't act like Naruto would've done in that form, and so she _couldn't_ be Naruto.

And he'd always thought that his espionage skills were absolutely useless. Naruto smirked. This was going to be _fun_.

Suppressing that thought before he started pranking everyone within sight like there was no tomorrow, Naruto continued on his way through the streets of Konoha, wondering to himself over where he was supposed to spend the night. Or if he wasn't going to return to the future, and in that case, where he could make a home for himself.

The question was a good one and required much thought.

Which is why he didn't really have time to react as he bumped into someone.

A small someone, just tall enough to nail Naruto in the teeth with their forehead.

Crashing ungracefully to the ground by the unexpected and unintended assault, Naruto realized with much annoyance that it'd rained recently. The mud got _everywhere_.

Glaring up at the person who'd cost him the new clothes, Naruto found himself looking into a pair of mildly confused dark eyes.

Sasuke.

He'd run into Sasuke.

"Dobe?" he glanced over his shoulder, and Naruto realized with increasing dread that there was an orange blob somewhere in the crowd to where he was looking.

"Time-travel. Big explosion. Totally not my fault." was the mud-drenched Naruto's immediate response. Cursing himself for blurting that out just like that, Naruto blinked as another thought formed in his head. "Can I stay at your place?"

Sasuke looked at him for a while, then, with a simple nod in the affirmative, he turned away and started to walk.

XXX

Naruto wasn't sure whether or not he should feel insulted or relived that Sasuke so easily believed his story. Sure it was nice to be believed when you told the truth. But did he really have to look like he'd known that it was only a matter of time before Naruto would screw up so terribly that he'd accidentally blow himself _backwards through time and into another gender_. It was like he just casually accepted that him being that stupid was an obvious fact.

Naruto was seriously considering pranking the hell out of him in the morning, just for that.

As they'd entered the Uchiha's home, Naruto had immediately set to locate the one thing of true meaning in the entire place. The fridge. Upon finding said meaningful existence, Naruto had kind of started to twitch all over.

_What kind of crazy person puts tomatoes in the __**fridge**__!?_ Needless to say, the answer was Sasuke, but it was more of rhetorical question. And yes, Naruto knew what a rhetorical question was. Just don't ask him to spell it. There were some things that mankind just weren't supposed to _do_ to the poor and defenseless alphabet.

By now having decided that Sasuke Uchiha was a freak of nature and really deserved anything he got, Naruto began to ponder on exactly how he should be pranking his current benefactor halfway to death – pranking someone to death might get him arrested, and there was probably some other reason for not doing it as well, he just couldn't think of any right now since he was distracted by where he would sleep.

There was only one mattress, what with the last remaining Uchiha – not counting the crazy one who wears nail-polish – was just that, the _last_ Uchiha. There was no reason for a single person to have more than one mattress. Unless they were a crazy person. Like Ero-sennin. Ero-sennin was plenty crazy enough to need several mattresses. Or, of course, if you played with fire when you should be sleeping. That had been an awesome prank. Nobody even blamed it on him afterwards. Everyone just assumed that the chain-smoker was getting sloppy in his old age.

But he digressed.

Since there was only one mattress, one of them would either have to find another place to sleep – hopefully more comfortable than the floor – or they would be forced to share it.

Naruto was fairly certain that he'd be the one on the floor if they didn't share and was now stuck with trying to figure out which would be worse. Sleeping on the floor and waking up feeling like someone had been stomping on him for the last three hours, or convince Sasuke to share the mattress and actually share the mattress with_ Sasuke_.

It was a tough choice.

"You can have it." Sasuke said in his usual slightly annoyed tone, breaking off Naruto's train of thought. "I'll just sleep on the floor."

Naruto gaped as Sasuke simply lay down on the floor, shifted around a bit, and then promptly ceased to move.

There was something highly annoying about this situation, but the gender-challenged boy couldn't really place it. It felt like it was at the tip of his tongue. Something about being gentlegranny._ No... that wasn't quite it..._ With a final mental groan at all of the annoyances in his life, Naruto plopped down on the mattress, closed his eyes, and willed himself to sleep with the willpower of a thousand suns. Not that he really knew if a sun had any actual willpower, but it sounded totally awesome, so there!

XXX

Naruto wasn't good with people.

He managed to hide this fact quite well under blatant exclamations and a cheerful attitude, but the fact remained that he didn't really understand what he was supposed to be doing. Normally, nobody cared, he got punched through a wall by an annoyed Sakura, everyone laughed, and then they all got along with their lives. It was a simple, but remarkably effective.

Unfortunately, Sakura wasn't always there to punch him through a wall, and so his brilliant distraction from his lack of social skill couldn't always be used. This was a problem.

How were you supposed to deal with someone having nightmares?

Naruto wasn't any stranger to nightmares, he'd experienced more of them than most his age, but nobody had ever tried to stop them. He would simply wake up, sooner or later.

The problem with this method was that Sasuke was moving in his sleep, thereby keeping Naruto from sleeping, so unless he wanted to stay up all night he needed to do something.

Racking his brain for anything to do with the legendary comfort of a mother – he'd heard they were the best at these kinds of things – Naruto tried to suppress the sudden urge to kidnap someone else to fix this for him. It wasn't that kidnapping was wrong, so much as that Sasuke would kill him if Naruto ever let it slip that he had nightmares.

Stupid duck-butt.

Briefly weighing the option of kicking him awake, Naruto rejected that on the little he knew about common courtesy. You don't kick the guy who's letting you stay at his house. That'd just be asking for it.

Humming.

He remembered Sakura humming once, when she'd been distracted in class, and he'd fallen asleep at his desk.

Ignoring the need to cackle maniacally at the possibility of finally finding a solution to his dilemma, Naruto began to hum.

Or, well, he tried to.

Sure, he might remember the event that consisted of Sakura humming, but he didn't remember the _tune_.

Whimpering silently as he saw his chance at a good night's sleep slip through his fingers, Naruto set out to make a completely new tune. A tune that'd be just as soothing as any tune that Sakura could possibly think of. It'd be the bestest most comforting tune _ever_!

Unfortunately, despite Naruto's brilliance in tune-inventing, Sasuke apparently had really picky tastes.

Figures.

Once again suppressing the need to beat Sasuke into submission, Naruto began his humming anew. This time though, he was watching the bastard's face as he did so, trying to find a tune that'd make him stop frowning.

Patting himself on the back at this monumental of goals, Naruto continued on his path of finding a way to keep the always-present frown away from Sasuke's face.

It was kind of fun.

Not to invent weird tunes that Sasuke might or might not approve of, but it was just, sitting here, in the middle of the night, trying to tease away his best friend's frown was reminding him of all their good times together.

Yes, Sasuke was certainly a bastard, but Naruto didn't understand people, and Sakura was violent, and Kakashi was a pervert. They were all a bit messed up. But they'd been together, laughing at the same jokes, glaring at the same people.

The thought of seeing the boy in front of him turn his back on them again was probably enough to send him back to his own nightmares.

Blinking slowly and dismissing that thought, Naruto continued his gentle humming. He might not have been enough to bring him back last time. But this time there would be two of him. They could totally kick his ass if he tried anything.

XXX

**A/n: This is the result of reading gender-bending and time-travel fics for several months straight. Fear it.**

**I don't really know where I was going with this story, and then I ran out of steam.**

**Below is an Omake of sorts.**

XXX

XXX

Sasuke wasn't Jiraiya, so the ample showing of cleavage wouldn't win him this battle, and the puppy-eyed look had _never_ worked on his rival. Unless he was using it in order to get him to insult him or punch him in the face.

However, Naruto was anything if not resourceful, and he'd come up with an interesting idea to win the Uchiha over to his side. Using _both_ ample cleavage and puppy-eyes. There would be no chance of failure. It had to work. It could work. It might possibly have a shot at success. The chance of hell freezing over was _technically_ smaller... probably.

Kneeling in front of the boy with both of his hands grasping at his shirt in a desperate gesture of need, Naruto looked up into his eyes and tried to look as absolutely pitiful as possible.

Sasuke twitched.

It looked as if he was torn between two – or potentially three – completely different trains of thought.

Naruto, revitalized by this apparent progress from immediate and usually painful dismissal, managed to squeeze forward some actual moisture into his eyes as he allowed his lower lip to tremble the slightest bit.

Sasuke promptly passed out.

Naruto looked at his unconscious form for a few moments. _Note to self: Sasuke can't pay for ramen if he's unconscious, hold back next time._


	6. Collection Chapter 2

Alternate Beginnings of an Uzumaki Collection Chapter 2

Sasuke Cutting Loose

Unlikely Allies

Surrender of An Innocent

Crazy Sakura

XXX

Story: [Sasuke Cutting Loose]

Summary: Sasuke has been stuck in a time-loop for a long while.

Genre: Humor

XXX

It was funny how the mind worked, Sasuke mused to himself. It'd taken him 19 loops of hard work, blood, death, betrayal, imprisonment, slaughter, teamwork, infiltration, suicide, and a grudging respect for a woman dressed in fishnet, but this was what he would like to classify as his first true epiphany.

Itachi couldn't get to him in here.

As long as the time-loop that he'd been caught in was still in effect, nothing his brother could do really mattered.

Still, he couldn't really bring himself to saying it out loud, simply because it sounded so obvious when you actually put some thought into it, but for him it really hadn't been.

Itachi was his boogeyman, the monster he looked under his bed for – figuratively of course, he slept on a futon on the floor – and he ruled his dreams with a grip of terror. The mere _thought_ that Itachi didn't matter was absurd. It was like discovering that the sun was just a daydream of his.

So Itachi must be able to hurt him, damage him, kill him. But he _couldn't_, because every time he died, every time he found himself broken and shattered on the ground, every time he was faced with hopelessness, his time would reset and he'd wake up in his bed.

Many viewed Sasuke as a genius, and he was, but he'd never really thought that much about his mental state, opting instead for training to become stronger. In fact, the only reason for his sudden epiphany of freedom had been something that Naruto had said when he'd asked him why the blond boy always smiled.

"Because if I live in anger or fear, they'll win."

It'd been a laughably idiotic thing to say, the simple words of a stubborn child. But somehow, Sasuke had understood.

The last Uchiha smiled as he entered the first part of the chunin exam, ignoring the way that Naruto kept staring at him with something akin to unsettled horror. He was free to do whatever he felt like, because Itachi didn't matter. He could become stronger, he could pick a fight with the Hokage, he could join in on Naruto's pranks, he could get into Ino's pant-...

Okay, no. Just no. There was freedom and acting out, and then there were _fangirls_.

He suppressed the urge to shudder at the very thought, and began to look for something with which to distract himself.

"Sasuke-kun~!" And, of course, Ino shows up. Great, absolutely fantastic.

Desperately ignoring the high pitched noises that occur whenever the two fangirls meet, Sasuke briefly considered getting a bowl-cut. After all, it seemed to be working wonders for Lee.

Then he realized that the adoption of his hair-style might classify him as 'youthful friend'-material by the student and his teacher, and so promptly discarded the idea for ever and always, even if it meant suffering the annoying girls' incessant wailing for all of eternity. There was just something about the spandex-clad duo that had him thinking that whatever horrors Orochimaru had in store for him couldn't really be all that bad.

XXX

XXX

Story: [Unlikely Allies]

Summary: During the Invasion, two unlikely people get caught in a time-loop.

Genre: Adventure

XXX

Gaara watched his sister do the exact same thing that she'd done last time, trying to convince their middle brother not to take out his anger on the young boy that'd just ran into him.

Really, and they told him that _he_ had anger issues.

Sighing slightly at the stupidity of it all, Gaara looked towards the sky.

The clouds were pretty today.

He wasn't sure if they were the same as they'd been last time this had happened, after all, back then he hadn't been fully sane, and hardly in any shape to be paying attention to something as fantastically bloodless as the weather.

Still, it was a nice view.

He wondered briefly if his current situation was good, bad, or some kind of dream.

Gaara had never dreamed before, but he'd once heard someone say that you couldn't pinch yourself in your dreams, or something along those lines. So they were a bit like genjutsu. At least that's what he'd gathered.

Shukaku continued on with its mindless muttering about blood and death, but it still seemed a bit off from the transition.

Gaara wasn't sure how he'd ended up back in time, but he was fully willing to blame Shukaku. It seemed fairly innocent of the accusation, but logic was irrelevant to who was actually blamed for whatever situation had arisen. At least, that's what he'd heard. His brother probably talked a bit too much.

Naruto had stopped his rampage, for his precious people. And just as he was faced with the power behind the bonds of the blond, he blinked. And then they were on their way to Konoha, getting ready for the Invasion.

He wasn't sure how he'd ended up here, but if everything played out like last time, then Naruto would save the young boy who'd run into his brother, and maybe then he could ask him what had happened.

XXX

Gaara stared at the wall of their assigned quarters as the sun set.

Naruto didn't know him. Naruto had never seen him. Never fought him. Never told him about his precious people.

He was alone.

Naruto hadn't come back in time with him.

It was just Gaara and Shukaku. A boy and his insane demon.

Still, maybe he could keep Naruto safe? Not hurt Naruto's precious people, not participate in the exam, maybe try to get closer to his siblings.

There were so many options.

XXX

Ino startled out of her bed, twisting, getting caught in the blanket, and then tumbling down onto the floor with a loud thump.

Suna was attacking, and she'd somehow ended up facing an enemy nin all alone, having been briefly separated from her team.

The kunai. She suddenly clutched at her chest, expecting a sticky dampness that wasn't there.

It didn't hurt either.

Had she died?

Ino stared at the wall of her bedroom, and saw the calender hanging there.

The calender that clearly stated that the first part of the chunin exams were coming.

Had the world gone mad?

XXX

She'd spent two hours trying to break through the genjutsu, before finally deciding that whatever it was, it was so far out of her league that she might as well declare it real.

Shikamaru had glanced at her with a slight frown at one point, which was proof of just how distracted she was by all of this, for even Shikamaru to declare it worth the trouble of thinking about what was going on. If only for a moment.

Nobody else seemed to have noticed how the world had rewound over a month in time that morning, and there weren't any signs of Konoha's forces preparing for battle, so apparently none of any importance had realized it either.

All of this left Ino in a very annoying situation. Did she try to warn the Hokage, thereby risking being locked up for being insane? Or did she just go with the flow, and hope that the village could deal with the Invasion on its own?

In the end, she chose to go with the flow. Partly because she remembered her dad once mentioning the specific conditions that people that'd been labeled as a danger to themselves or others were locked up in. And partly because she wanted to kick Forehead's ass this time.

XXX

Gaara frowned slightly as he made his way to the exam.

Bonding with people who were terrified of you was _hard_.

Shukaku wasn't making it any better either, with all of its ramblings of blood and death.

Gaara wondered if there was a way to shut it up. Meditation had never worked, killing people only lessened its efforts, and as of yet he'd never succeeded in finding anything to fully silence it.

The test was the same as it'd been the last time. Same questions, same tricks, same bluffs, same cheating, same intimidation.

Really, it was enough to actually be somewhat amusing.

XXX

Ino had to bite her lip to keep herself from giggling at the seriousness of those surrounding her.

Sure, she'd been intimidated the first time too, but that didn't make it any less amusing to watch them tremble in fear over something that was such an obvious bluff in retrospect.

And then came Naruto's speech, solidifying the resolve of those around them, and finally the bluff was revealed to them all.

As their indignant voices echoed across the room, Ino hid her face and prayed that nobody would notice her shoulders shaking from withheld laughter. Or that if they noticed that they'd think it was her being hysterical, or something, and in generally not laughing at them.

She didn't want people chasing her down for some perceived slight during the survival test in the Forest of Death.

Unfortunately, apparently it wasn't to be, because when she looked up from her bout of silent laughter, after Anko had vacated the room, Gaara met her eyes.

Paling drastically at having drawn the attention of the crazy person, Ino glanced around for a place to hide.

XXX

The blonde girl hadn't done _that_ before.

Perhaps... perhaps she was reliving this too?

Why her? If this was truly the work of the Ichibi sealed inside of him, then why would it affect someone who hadn't even been nearby when the jump must've happened?

A mystery, then.

Gaara saw the girl pale once she noticed his attention, and he wondered why she'd fear him if she didn't know of him. Deciding to confirm his suspicions, Gaara calmly walked up next to her.

"It's easier when you've already done it once?" He asked her carefully, trying to make it clear to her if she truly had returned with him whilst still not showing his cards, so to speak.

The blonde girl stared at him for a moment, fear warring with incomprehension. Then something snapped into place behind her eyes.

"Spandex isn't a bad guy, go easy on him?" She asked in return.

A smile briefly twitched at Gaara's lips, as he found someone who understood. Before it was replaced with an almost guilty frown. "I'll try."

XXX

Ino stared at the crazy boy who was apparently aware of the repetition, and who actually looked _guilty_ about almost killing someone in the preliminaries.

This was beyond baffling. This required further research.

"Why?" She asked.

Gaara glanced over at a blond in orange who was apparently talking with his former classmates.

"Because... he'd be upset." He stated in a slightly uncertain way, as if he wasn't entirely sure of this himself, but wasn't going to let anyone know that.

Ino glanced over at Naruto, the dead-last of the academy, the one who beat Neji in the finals, the one who'd just given an inspirational speech that'd hardened everyone's resolve.

There was something a bit... rare about him, wasn't there? And here came a psycho who suddenly tried not to kill people because it would upset the guy?

Ino was fairly sure that there was a story here, somewhere. And she wanted to know.

XXX

XXX

Story: [Surrender of An Innocent]

Summary: A different way of love to form. A different reason for love to be denied.

Genre: Drama, Romance

XXX

She watched the boy who would always carelessly declare his love for her as he walked quietly, subdued, away.

She'd never be able to return his feelings. The thought made her cringe. She could almost feel the tears threatening to break free from her eyes.

No matter of her feelings, she wished, hoped, prayed, begged that somewhere, soon, there would be another to claim his heart. One who could return that silly, absolute, trusting, and childishly innocent love.

So she'd left him with _her_, the girl who already loved. The girl who already watched from the shadows, the girl who might just reach out one day.

One day wasn't good enough, one day wouldn't keep him from breaking, shattering, _she_ needed to reach out for him soon, fast. Now.

So she'd left him with _her_. Told him that she felt nothing. Told him to leave.

Because she needed to disappear. Away from him. Never allow him to follow her again.

His love belonged to one who could keep him, save him, be saved by him.

That one wasn't her. She'd never be that one. No matter how much she wished that it could've been. She would break him, shatter him, she would only watch as that spark in his eyes slowly clouded-over.

_She_ wouldn't even consider it. _She_ would always keep it there, feed it, nurture it, make it bloom. It wasn't her place. It never had been, never should've been, never could've been, never would be.

So she watched them, vision blurry as _she_ tried to breathe life into his dying embers. And she wished that she had lungs that could do that. Capable of breathing life, innocence, and love. Her breath was just air.

It burned. Something in her chest, clenching painfully as _she_ brought a smile back to his lips.

She smiled, her lips tasting of salt. He would be alright. He would be safe, happy, innocent, loved.

It would be enough.

She turned, walked away, ignoring the burning, ignoring the taste, ignoring the image that replayed itself endlessly behind her eyelids. Him smiling happily at _her_.

Tomorrow, perhaps there would be nothing for her to risk breaking. No spark to dim, no smile to crack. Perhaps she could finally disappear. Perhaps... perhaps it would get easier to see him with _her_. Someday.

Maybe tomorrow.

XXX

XXX

Story: [Crazy Sakura]

Summary: Sakura never befriends Ino to start with, instead finding a book about conquering the world. Quite a bit changes as a result.

Genre: Humor, Adventure

XXX

It was a crossroad, a young girl with pink hair that was bullied by some older children. But this time there was no beautiful and confident savior, with hair like golden silk and smelling of flowers. No, this time it was only her.

But even if this particular event had happened so many times before, this would still remain the crossroad for the young girl. So, she cried as she fled from their taunts.

She fled until she found herself in the library, still sniffling silently as she began to look around. She knew that this wouldn't be the last time it happened, unless she changed something. She wasn't sure what to change, but if she could turn her weakness into her strength, like she'd once read that you should, then perhaps she'd be free from their pointing fingers.

"How to use your head; a kunoichi's guide to world domination. By Kurama the Ninth." Sakura read the cover of a book.

She wasn't entirely sure what world domination was, or why it was important enough that someone had made a guide for it, but it told you to use your head. That was kind of like using your overly large forehead for a good cause, right?

It wasn't a very big book, but it felt... heavy somehow. As if holding it meant holding something more than merely paper and ink.

Shrugging the feeling off, Sakura began to read.

XXX

Now, it should be noted that most authors don't actually want to conquer the world, and would most likely simply amuse themselves by finding new and ever more intricate plots in which to do so.

Whether Kurama was being serious or not, well it's hard to say.

Unfortunately, regardless of whether or not the foxy author wrote the truth, Sakura was going to make sure to follow the rules.

Never underestimate a child with a guide on how to be better, the pure level of dedication that they might hold to their plans is unnerving to say the least.

Especially when they get positive feedback for their actions.

Like, say, broke one of their bullies' nose by headbutting them, thereby cementing their position as one that none would dare laugh at.

Not that a teacher didn't disapprove of this course of action. Of course, that only served to force the child to develop a 'them against me' sort of attitude, dragging her deeper into the reassuring arms of her guide to world conquest.

It's most likely that Kurama would be feeling very proud at her progress, had they ever met.

XXX

Sakura walked confidently into the classroom where all the graduates had gathered.

Bitchy Blonde sat amongst her friends, fawning over Dark and Broody. Dark and Broody was brooding. Hilariously Idiotic Blond was trying to glare at him, scrunching up his face in a a very amusing way. Fatso was eating. Lazy was sleeping. Barking Idiot was playing with his dog. Shy Girl was sneaking glances at Hilariously Idiotic Blond. And Buggy was sitting in a corner.

She supposed that she might want to learn some of their names, one of these days, but she couldn't be bothered.

She had a world to conquer after all.

Taking her usual seat near the back – always a good idea to keep your back against the wall – Sakura waited patiently for their teacher Scar-Face to show up. She was fairly sure he wouldn't have enjoyed being called that out loud, much like the rest of them, so she simply called him a respectful sounding 'sensei', instead of the workable 'you' that she usually used amongst her classmates.

She wondered if anyone there had actually noticed that she didn't remember any of their names.

Possibly Lazy, if he'd ever bothered with paying attention to her, and Buggy, because he seemed to be good at observing things. But then, she wasn't sure if Buggy knew the rest of their names either.

Sakura kind of liked Buggy. She didn't mind Hilariously Idiotic Blond either, but that was mostly because he made her laugh. The rest she didn't bother with.

Sighing softly as she realized that Hilariously Idiotic Blond was a very long name, she decided to shorten it into 'Hilarious Blond'.

Then Scar-Face began to divide them into teams.

This proved to complicate her naming-system, as she really didn't have a clue who this 'Sasuke'-person she was on a team with was. 'Naruto' was apparently Hilarious Blond though from the amount of noise he was making, so at least she'd get a few laughs out of her new teammates. Good to know.

Frowning slightly in thought as she tried to get Hilarious Blond to show her who their other teammate was so that she wouldn't be forced to speak up and make everyone realize that she didn't know their names, Sakura wondered who their teacher would be.

Would they perhaps be like Crazy Fishnet? That woman who seemed to both threaten and seduce people into buying her dango? She'd liked her. She'd been funny.

Of course, she'd immediately thrown away the idea of acting in such a manner herself, as not only might it mean to encroach upon Crazy Fishnet's territory, it would probably not work as she didn't have enough cleavage. Yet.

She'd have to make getting more cleavage a priority. Kurama had pointed out that it made people not pay attention to the cleavage-owner's hands, which would be fantastic if she was planning on stabbing them.

Turns out their other teammate was Dark and Broody. Wonderful, she'd probably be attacked by his fangirls or something.

Nodding thoughtfully to herself, Sakura made a note to keep an eye out for Bitchy Blonde.

It was kind of sad, she supposed, that she could probably distract them by henge-ing herself into Dark and Broody and then just take off his shirt. Unfortunately, she might be forced to stab them after that, as they might attack her in that way that fangirls did.

She could sympathize with Dark and Broody, it must be tough to be forced to listen to their high-pitched noise for several hours a day.

Didn't mean she wouldn't stab him if he was annoying – Kurama said that it was good to make an example of annoying people – but it would mean that she might lend him earplugs if he ever started to look like he'd snap.

XXX

Her eye twitching slightly in annoyance, Sakura glanced at the clock.

Three hours late. Their bastard of a sensei was three goddamn hours late.

She'd probably try to kill him when he showed up if she didn't already know he'd beat the snot out of her – Kurama always said that it was important to know your limitations.

Hilarious Blond was setting up a prank, which was pathetic in every aspect of the word.

Dark and Broody pointed this out, and Hilarious Blond got offended.

He really should learn to take criticism, and Dark and Broody should learn some damn subtlety. Antagonizing your own teammates would be bad. What if they stabbed you on a mission? It would completely ruin the mission. That was why you shouldn't annoy your teammates. Coworkers were perfect targets, as long as you didn't annoy them on missions, since missions were important and it wouldn't do for you to get stabbed and the mission to be a failure just because you annoyed someone.

Frowning at the two idiots that were going to join her on the team of their bastard of a sensei, Sakura finally opened her mouth.

"You're both idiots."

The two boys blinked, looking surprised, both at her speaking, and how she'd so casually insulted them both.

"You, learn to take criticism better. It's either that or you'll be forced to learn from your own failures. Failures that may end with you losing more than you're willing to lose." She looked meaningfully at Hilarious Blond, before turning to Dark and Broody. "And you, learn to criticize. What kind of pathetic advice was that? 'It would never work', unless you continue with that line of thought, explaining both why it wouldn't work and/or giving an explanation of what could be done instead of the intended course of action, it becomes such a pathetic advice that you might as well go and choke on something for all the help it is."

The two boys stared at her with something a bit similar to a cross between annoyance and awe.

She got awe a lot when she spoke. Possibly because people always enjoyed seeing other people insulted in a rational manner. It was impressive.

Thankfully, she was spared the loud retort that she could see building in them by their sensei getting the eraser dropped on his head.

"My first impression of you." He drawled. "I hate you all. Meet me at the rooftop." Then he disappeared.

Tilting her head as she considered this new development, Sakura made her way to the roof, ignoring her other teammates unusual lack of bickering.

Once they arrived, they took the seats that the late, masked, bastard of a sensei directed them to.

He quickly declared that they were going to introduce themselves, and demonstrated how to do so after Hilarious Blond asked him to.

They only learned his name, technically, though since Sakura hadn't been paying attention to it she only really learned that he was a _mysteriously_ late, masked bastard of a sensei.

She found that this was a very long name to remember him by, but was a bit short on inspiration.

"My name is Haruno Sakura, and I like..." She paused, considering how much subtlety she would need to dodge the question a bit. "Books." She finally finished with a decisive nod. "I dislike annoyances." She continued. "And my dream is..." She almost said 'conquer the world', but Kurama said that you shouldn't actually tell anyone that until it was too late for them to do anything about it. "To use my head." She finished with an evil smirk.

Because smirking evilly was fine. Nobody could prove that you were trying to conquer the world no matter how much you smirked, or how evil that smirk looked.

She watched as their teacher looked up from his orange book, apparently trying to weigh her words, before turning to the next one.

"Blondie you're up."

As Hilarious Blond began to ramble about ramen and being Hokage, Sakura tried to figure out where she'd seen that orange cover on a book before.

"Ah, the Icha Icha series." She exclaimed, just after Dark and Broody had said something about killing someone and getting laid – both pretty damn good goals as far as she was concerned.

The rest of them stared at her in confusion, whilst their teacher had a look of dawning realization.

"You've read Icha Icha?" He asked, sounding both scandalized and amused.

She nodded, because those books were good at describing how to use your cleavage to make people not pay attention to your hands. She'd wanted to make sure she'd got it right once she had cleavage of her own.

"How?" He asked, apparently believing that the age-limits were somehow going to stop her from reading a book.

Pah, what foolishness. Nothing would ever stop her from reading a book she wanted to read. And the shop-keeper had learned not to question her age again after she'd henge'd into her, sans clothes, and then began to walk back towards the crowded street.

Don't underestimate a ninja.

"I bought it?" She tilted her head cutely, trying her best to look confused and innocent of any potential blackmail that she might've committed in order to do so.

"But-..." He trailed off, staring at her in confusion and suspicion.

"Is there a reason why I shouldn't have been able to buy it, sensei?" She asked him innocently, hoping that he'd drop the subject before she was forced to admit to actually breaking the law.

He stared at her for a few moments longer, but finally slumped a bit, looking strangely defeated.

"Not at all." He said with a plastered on smile. "But you shouldn't tell your teammates of it, wouldn't want to spoil it for them." And now his smile seemed a lot more genuine.

Sakura looked at him for a moment longer before she came to an odd conclusion.

Their sensei amused her.

Smirking at the thought, Sakura nodded enthusiastically.

After all, it wouldn't do for them to learn of her cleavage-techniques before she ever had a chance of using them, would it?

XXX

Masked Pervert-sensei was late again.

This annoyed Sakura, and so she was currently occupied with planning just how she was supposed to get her sweet, sweet vengeance on him.

The boys were clearly annoyed as well, though they were showing it in different ways.

She wondered briefly if any of them had actually followed their sensei's 'advice' or if they'd taken her word for it when she pointed out that their bastard of a sensei would most likely be going out of his way in order to make them suffer, and that it would therefore be stupid to actually listen to what he was saying.

She hadn't put it _quite_ like that, since that might classify her as 'insubordinate' and get her into useless trouble, but she'd been close. Very close.

XXX


	7. Alucard Naruto

XXX

**Story:** [Alucard Naruto]

**Summary:** Forced to the very edge of his life at seven, Naruto curses all that lives and is in turn forever cursed by it. Vampire!Naruto

**Genre:** Humor/Horror

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

XXX

Naruto wasn't a religious person, despite how he might've acted around ramen over the years, and he wasn't the type to blame the gods for his own failures.

If he was going to blame anyone, they were going to be standing right in front of his face, so that he could break their noses for being dicks.

That was the kind of person that Uzumaki Naruto was.

Still, even the most stubborn of people can change and be twisted into something different, if given the right incitement.

The blood pooling around him in an ever-growing puddle, Naruto stared blankly up at the blurry shapes of those who were responsible.

Naruto was dying.

He'd never graduated from the Academy, he'd never heard of his parents, he didn't even know of the Kyuubi sealed inside of his belly. And Naruto was dying, not understanding why he was hated, not understanding why he was avoided, not understanding why he had a surname but everyone refused to admit that he'd once had parents.

And for the first time in his life, Naruto gave up.

He wouldn't be Hokage, because he was dying. He wouldn't make people acknowledge him, because he was dying. He wasn't going to become someone famous, and rescue princesses, or save kingdoms from monsters, because he was going to die there. So very young, so very inexperienced about the world, and so very tired of being looked down upon by everyone in possession of eyes.

And he felt rage, a final defiant ember sparking to life within his chest.

If he was going to die, then he cursed them. He cursed the civilians for hating him, he cursed the ninja for ignoring him, he cursed his classmates for mocking him, he cursed the sun for rising the next day, he cursed the sky for remaining so far out of his reach, he cursed life for slipping away from him.

His face pressed into the blood, the liquid designed to keep him alive, that was now slowly drowning him in its own sticky red.

And he drank it.

It tasted of iron, it hurt his throat to swallow, and he didn't know why he bothered with it. But he cursed it all, and he drank his own blood from the ground on which it'd been spilled.

Naruto wasn't a religious person, but through luck, perhaps good, perhaps bad, but certainly in defiance of the odds. Naruto defied the gods, and was cursed in return.

XXX

They arrived too late to stop the assassination attempt, much to the silent fury of all ANBU sent on the mission. They were supposed to be the best, and yet they couldn't even stop this.

The Hokage would be furious as well, once he learned of it, they knew. And the old man would most likely have _words_ with those who'd arranged the confrontation from behind the scenes, if he wasn't having them with the originators already.

The ANBU froze.

The pieces of a good dozen civilians were strewn across the alley, yet there was no blood.

In the middle of it all sat a young boy with blond hair, a dazed smile on his lips as he stared up at the moon that floated serenely in the sky, with his once-blue eyes a softly glowing red.

The Kyuubi couldn't have broken loose, for there had been no signs of the demon's unnatural chakra, and there was something horrifyingly unsettling about the boy's vaguely amused expression in the face of such vicious carnage, self-defense or not.

XXX

Naruto sighed as the Hokage appeared outside his 'room'.

It'd been a long time since he'd seen the man as a grandfather, a long time since his innocence had been stained by what he'd found at the bottom of the world, beneath the soles of the gods' feet. Sarutobi didn't enjoy visiting him, and only did so either yearly, or when he wanted something from him.

Well, he most likely visited him yearly to remind himself of his failures, so Naruto's presence and general behavior was what he _wanted_ from him during those yearly visits, but Naruto had learned that most people didn't enjoy someone analyzing their every action until he'd disassembled their entire image of the world. Apparently, it was unsettling.

Naruto might no longer view the old man as a grandfather of sorts, but that didn't mean he didn't respect the man. He was good at what he did, he was skilled, he was experienced, he didn't flinch unless Naruto dredged up something personal in his attempts to amuse himself in the windowless room that had become his home, all those years ago.

Still, this wasn't a yearly visit, so the Hokage wanted to see him for something 'special' again.

He wasn't an assassin, he wasn't a mad killer who slaughtered everyone that stood in his path, he wasn't anything that the one-eyed man Danzo had wanted to turn him into. He was an insane boy with red eyes, capable of horrible brutality, and generally amused by people's attempts to kill him.

He was of use to nobody. He was merely left alone in the deepest depths of Konoha, in an effort to keep him from provoking people and then slaughtering them in self-defense.

He should know, the Hokage had been quite upset at him the first three times that he'd done so.

"Naruto." The man sounded tired, like he remembered each and every year of his unusually long life, and felt their entire collected weight. "Your old classmates are graduating from the Academy today."

Naruto tilted his head, curious as to why the man would bring up such useless trivia to someone who'd given up humanity and spat into the faces of the gods.

"Do you remember them?" Sarutobi queried, sounding sad.

Naruto considered mocking the man for bringing up such a pointless thing, but his respect for him won out in the end. "I do." He answered simply.

"Would you like to see them?" The Hokage asked again.

Naruto felt his eyebrow raise, an amused glint appearing in his crimson eyes. So this was another appeal towards his 'humanity'? How amusing.

Still, he considered the question, not in the way it'd been phrased, but in the way it would affect him. If he said 'no', he would remain where he was, possibly until the Hokage passed away from old age. If he said 'yes', he would be expected to behave, and he might be allowed to see the moon.

Naruto didn't have a lot of pleasures left in his life. He ate and drank nothing but blood and that only rarely, he was even more sparsely visited by anyone whose mind he could play with, and the Hokage had specifically _ordered_ him not to kill anyone unless they attacked him first – or if it was in the immediate defense of a Konoha ninja. Most of his time was spent staring at the wall, and trying to count every grain in the stone. He'd gotten past half one of the four walls once, but had lost count by blinking.

Basically, he was terrifyingly bored, and quite willing to do just about anything in order to stretch his legs again. Though he wasn't enjoying the idea that they might plan on bringing him outside into the sun. The sun didn't agree with him, though from what he could tell it was more a case of becoming lethargic in the suffocating heat of what was actually a chilly day, than it was horrible sunburns.

Then again, it was possible that the Kyuubi just disliked getting sunburns as much as he did, and simply regenerated the skin before he could notice. The demonic fox was amusing like that.

Naruto spread his hands, indicating the sealed rooms with a sardonic smile. "Why not? I've got time."

The Hokage frowned at that, but didn't argue the point.

XXX

When he first heard of it, he couldn't help himself. He started to laugh.

They wanted to finally turn him into a ninja.

He didn't really see the point of being one, knowing that the dreams he'd once held had been amongst the things he'd cursed, amongst the things he'd spat on. He would never be Hokage, he would never make anyone acknowledge him, he would at best drag the world into an endless abyss of war and destruction. So that they might be cursed with him.

But that wouldn't happen for a long time yet, he respected the Hokage after all, and didn't want to upset the man needlessly.

He had time, and sooner or later, a Hokage not worthy of the title would reach it, and then he would drag every living being into bloody carnage. He could afford to wait.

Chakra didn't work for him, it was after all, a thing that all living creatures shared, and Naruto wasn't technically alive. But then, he didn't really need it. He could move fast enough that the man in green spandex would be hard pressed to keep up, he could walk through walls, and with the Kyuubi healing his injuries even before his cursed regeneration or his stockpile of what was currently a dozen civilian lives was touched, he was virtually immune to injuries.

Even if he would never be able to walk on water, he could be a ninja, if all a ninja needed to be able to do was slaughter people.

No, the amusing part was that they'd decided to place him on a team with some of his former classmates. His innocent, unbloodied classmates.

Oh, but what fun they'd have.

XXX

"And, as we've got an uneven number of graduates this year. Another person will be joining one of your teams." Iruka explained to the recently graduated Academy students. "His name is Uzumaki Naruto."

There were a few shared glances amongst the students as they tried to put a face to go with the name in their memory, only to come up short. It'd been years since Naruto had disappeared from their class, and they'd been a lot more concerned with the slaughter of a dozen civilians that occurred at the same time, and the subsequent withdrawal of several students from civilian families who left the Village.

Naruto opened the door, an amused smirk dancing across his lips underneath the sunglasses that were keeping his sensitive eyes out of the light. His hair color was perhaps a shade darker, a bit dirtier than the previously sunshine-gold, and its endless spikes somewhat managed by the extra weight of his almost shoulder-length hair.

Still, if they'd known him, it shouldn't have been hard to place him in their memory, except for the dark, brownish red clothes that had replaced the previously garish orange. The Hokage hadn't minded the change, but had looked very uncomfortable with Naruto's stated reason.

Blood was difficult to wash out properly. And at least with this color, the stains it left behind wouldn't be as noticeable.

Obviously, none of the students recognized him, though he couldn't say the same in return. They hadn't changed much since back then, a bit older, a bit more muscle, a few different fashions, and a dog that he couldn't remember that was perched on Kiba's head.

A dog that was currently cowering, whining softly in terror as his scent washed across the room.

Naruto's lips twitched further upwards. How amusing.

"Take your seat, Uzumaki-kun." Iruka instructed him, gesturing towards an empty seat.

Not wanting to provoke people unnecessarily, Naruto walked over to the indicated seat, ignoring the generally subconscious economy of his movements, and how he was reminding some of the more attentive people of a large predator.

He didn't know any fighting style's, or train daily, or do anything remotely connected to the skills that normally needed to be acquired for such a thing. But he knew how to tear a person's throat out, using nothing but his teeth. Smooth movement, along with a few other things, appeared to come quite naturally to him.

It certainly didn't detract from matters that – as an experiment that had been conducted on what had happened to him – he'd drunk the blood of a captured enemy-nin. To the very last drop. There had been no second experiments, and all who'd heard the man's screams had been inordinately grateful for that.

XXX

By the time their jounin-sensei arrived, Naruto had begun to count the grains in the wood in one of the walls, much to his future-teammates disturbed annoyance.

Mostly because he found this a rather pleasant change from the boringly bland rock walls of his 'room', meaning that he spent all of the three hours, during which his teammates slowly drove themselves mad in boredom, smiling in a vaguely entertained way.

When the man in question finally arrived, Naruto felt his eyebrows climb somewhat. He recognized him, from one of the ANBU who'd personally kneeled before him, offering their apologies in their failure to protect him. This man had been one of those kneeling that seemed to feel the most wretched of their failure. None of them had asked for forgiveness – only to be allowed to apologize – and Naruto had offered none, in return.

He didn't mind what he'd become. Not really. It didn't do well to linger on such thoughts. But he could never truly forgive the world that he'd so cursed for his death. It was just the way of things.

So, when the man's lone eye swept over all three of them without the slightest glimmer of recognition, Naruto was forced to admit at least one thing about their new sensei. If nothing else; he knew how to act.

"My first impression of you is: I don't like you." He voiced in a lazy deadpan. "Meet me on the roof." And then he was gone.

Chuckling to himself, Naruto rose to his feet and made his way towards the stairs. He might technically be able to do quite a few things that would bring him to the roof quicker, but there was nothing wrong with using the 'regular' paths when the option presented itself. Besides, the sun was up, and he didn't feel like bothering with it.

By the time they'd made it to the roof, Naruto wondered if he should vocally praise the man's ability to ruffle the feathers of his future teammates. It was amusing to watch, really.

Then it came time for introductions, and his pink-haired teammate made Naruto seriously question her sanity. What kind of girl signs up to a be a cold-bloodied killer in order to impress a boy?

Then the broody ones turn came up, showing the boy to seemingly be willing to dedicate himself to killing someone for vengeance, which Naruto thought was fairly stupid. There was nothing wrong with vengeance, or mindless slaughter, or torturing someone you didn't like, but to dedicate your life to kill _one_ person? It seemed so hopelessly inefficient.

"You're up blondie." Hatake Kakashi pointed to him.

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto, I like... blood, I guess. I dislike sunny weather. My hobby is counting grains in walls. And my dream..." He paused, considering this for a brief moment. "I don't really have one." He finally settled on, uncaring of the guilty twitch of the man's eye.

Then they were being told of the final test, a survival test, that Kakashi had set up for the next day.

Naruto didn't really care either way. Sure, he wasn't particularly enthusiastic about the idea of returning to his 'room' for what might end up being decades, but then again it was only a few decades. He could probably wait around for centuries in those rooms without much of a bother. Thus, he didn't really care about becoming a ninja, respect for the Hokage or not.

XXX

Naruto found it vaguely interesting how none of his teammates seemed willing to comment on his... age.

Kakashi knew, he would've been briefed of Naruto's more unusual traits by the Hokage before the old man would even consider letting him near him. No, Kakashi wasn't a surprise, though he wasn't certain what the Academy teachers believed.

Naruto hadn't aged a day since his seventh birthday. He therefore really didn't look his age, which perhaps helped to contribute to the unsettled looks he'd gotten over the years for his behavior.

But why his teammates, the ones who'd been stuck with him for three hours whilst waiting for their jounin-sensei, had yet to make even the shallowest of inquiry to his apparent age was something of a mystery to Naruto. Not a very concerning one, but a curious puzzle to amuse himself with nonetheless.

Still, not even as they began on their wait for Kakashi to arrive the next day, did the questions arise.

Sakura still gazed adoringly at Sasuke. Sasuke still glared broodily into the distance.

Naruto went over and sat down in the shade, feeling a bit irked at the disgustingly sunny day, and began to count the pebbles in the training ground. He figured that they'd be there for a while.

XXX

"You have until noon to get a bell. The one without one will go back to the Academy after I tie them to one of the posts and then eat their lunch in front of them." Kakashi informed them gleefully. "You better come at me with an intent to kill."

"But sensei! You would get hurt!" Sakura worried.

Naruto just looked at the three people, and started laughing. It was a soft laughter, nearly silent, but that left his shoulders shaking from mirth.

"Did you have something to add, Naruto-kun?" Kakashi inquired curiously.

Naruto's silent laughter subsided with a sigh. "You're no fun at all." He shook his head. "Couldn't you have arrived another six hours late?" He made a disgusted face. "I don't feel like fighting in the sun."

Sakura made a horrified sound at the idea of the jounin arriving even later than he'd already done, and Sasuke threw a glare at him.

"Ah, right." Kakashi tilted his head, making a show of remembering something. "Well, Naruto-kun, just think of it as a handicap." He smiled happily down at him with a careless shrug.

"How is it a handicap to fight in the sun?" Sakura asked with a confused face.

"Hm? Oh Naruto-kun here is a bit too sensitive to the sun." The jounin answered simply.

"How useless." Sasuke huffed.

Naruto considered arguing the point, but ended up chuckling instead.

He didn't care about being sent back to the Academy, or about having someone eat lunch in front of him, it wasn't as if he actually ate food anymore, anyway. Though being up in the sun did make him feel a bit thirsty.

"You wouldn't happen to have a drink, sensei?" He asked. "I'm not really hungry, but the sun is getting annoying."

Kakashi blinked, and for a brief moment, seemed to still in memory, before another smile appeared on his face. Naruto was fairly certain that this one was definitely false. "Ah ah ah, that would be unfair, Naruto-kun." He wagged a chiding finger at him.

Naruto snorted a laugh. "Fine fine."

"Very well, everyone ready? Begin!" And with that final declaration from the jounin, both Sakura and Sasuke disappeared into the bushes.

Naruto was feeling pretty confident that he would be able to follow their scents to where they'd hidden themselves, but he didn't feel like trying.

"Not going to hide, Naruto-kun?" Kakashi asked curiously as he pulled out an orange book from his pocket.

Naruto shrugged, before walking back into the shade of the tree. "I don't think I want to try to kill you, and I have no real interest in those bells of yours. And it's sunny." He made a face as he sat down under the tree. "I think I'll sit this one out, if you don't mind."

Kakashi didn't look pleased by his lack of enthusiasm, but couldn't really do anything to motivate him. He'd seen the boy try to kill people, and if he was being honest, it wasn't something he wanted aimed at him if he could help it. Not so much because of him being dangerous, as much as it was because it was... well, _terrifying_ really, to watch a seven year old boy tear out someone's throat with nothing but his teeth. His shark-like teeth, set in a jaw that seemed to unhinge into massive proportions. Basically, Naruto was just plain _disturbing_ when he fought, in a way that tended to give most people nightmares.

XXX

Sasuke didn't know who the Uzumaki-boy was, or why he'd been assigned to their team, despite how he was clearly so much younger than them. Perhaps he was a genius that had been hurried through the Academy, perhaps someone had pulled strings for him to be able to 'befriend the last Uchiha', perhaps it was an attempt to sabotage them.

No, Sasuke really didn't know who this Uzumaki Naruto truly was. But there had to be _some_ reason for the blond child to end up on their team.

His suspicions seemed to have been proven when he realized that their new sensei actually knew the boy dressed in brownish crimson. Then the boy complained about the sun, and gave up.

It was almost enough to make Sasuke see red by association. It might help ease up the competition if the boy didn't try to fight, but the very idea of _not fighting_ when the jounin had clearly told them to come at him with intent to kill... it rubbed him the wrong way. Big time.

It was like the little brat thought that he was better than Sasuke for some reason.

Fighting back the urge to growl at the thought, the Uchiha concentrated on his current mission. Defeat Kakashi, steal both the bells, get out from the team of the shrieking banshee by not sharing them. It was a very good plan, simple and efficient.

XXX

The Uchiha knew how to throw a punch, Naruto could admit to that. He wasn't one for punching people, much more interesting to rip out their hearts, or bite off their necks, or slaughter people in general. The blood never failed to make him smile.

So Naruto honestly admitted that he would never be able to beat Sasuke in a spar. He could kill the boy, probably without too much of a hassle even, but he wouldn't stand a chance in friendly spar.

Sakura however, he was guessing that he could beat her, probably rather easily, even handicapped as he would be by not trying to kill her.

In comparison, he wasn't entirely certain if he would be able to kill Kakashi. If he went all-out, at night, after he'd sated his thirst, and it turned out that the man wasn't in possession of some of the more endlessly killing techniques, then Naruto would most likely win. But otherwise it was a mixture of possible draws and certain losses.

He might not care for ninja, but that didn't mean he wouldn't respect their skill at killing people. Even if he wasn't so much 'people' as a monster, nowadays.

Still, watching Kakashi play around with his potential future-teammates was definitely more entertaining than counting the grains in the stone of the walls in his rooms.

He made sure not to laugh loud enough for the others his age to hear him though. No need to provoke them without good cause, after all.

XXX

The fight for Kakashi's bells ended much like it was quite obvious that it would end.

Kakashi kicked their asses, mocked them, and tied Sakura to one of the training logs. He probably would've tied Naruto up – since he'd refused to even participate – but he'd in the end settled for Sakura when he remembered that Naruto wasn't really capable of being tied down.

It's hard to make rope bind water, after all. And whilst Naruto couldn't turn completely immaterial during the day, he could certainly slip out of some rope, whether it be chakra-enhanced or not.

Sakura didn't seem particularly pleased with being tied up and declared to be useless, and Sasuke obviously took offense to the idea that he 'wasn't suited to be a ninja'. Naruto took it in stride, casually nodding along as he reflected on the rather logical points that the jounin was making.

The smartest girl in the Academy, incapable of discovering and dismissing a very simple genjutsu. The Rookie of the Year, incapable of realizing that he was outclassed and needed to attain reinforcements. It was all pretty stupid behavior.

"And Naruto, you should learn to fight during the day, otherwise how do you expect to survive as a ninja?" Kakashi finally turned to him.

Naruto blinked. "I wouldn't." He admitted honestly. "But then, I can no more fight in sunlight than a civilian can flap their arms and take flight into the sky. It's not in my nature." He shrugged. "And besides, even if they do kill me, I'll only die. That's not so bad. There're certainly worse fates."

Kakashi stared at him for a long moment, obviously not pleased by his dismissal of such an obviously logical argument. "Do you think death is an escape, Naruto?" He finally asked, frowning.

Naruto tilted his head, feeling the lives of a dozen civilians and a single enemy-nin stored within him. "I think dying puts an interesting perspective on things." He admitted with an amused quirk of the lips.

"What would a brat like you know about dying?" Sasuke spat angrily.

Naruto turned towards the boy that was his own age, and felt his lips curl past his teeth, revealing sharp canine's in a slightly sinister smile. "Just because I don't age doesn't mean that I'm younger than you, Uchiha."

As the former Academy students both reeled from the possible implications of that statement, Kakashi took the chance to speak up.

"Regardless, even if you're weakened by the sun, you shouldn't simply give up." He scolded him.

Naruto shrugged, not bothering to argue the man's point. Why should he endure unpleasantness for a reward he didn't want?

Kakashi seemed to notice his defiance, but didn't call him on it, instead telling them that he would be giving them _one_ more chance to get their bell before he sent them all back to the Academy.

He also instructed them not to feed Sakura anything, as this was her punishment, before disappearing away.

Naruto spent a few moments staring after the jounin, before beginning to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Sasuke hissed, glaring at the blond.

Naruto, still chuckling helplessly, motioned towards the two lunchboxes. "He left me food." He explained, hopelessly amused despite himself.

Sasuke blinked, confused. "What's so funny about that?"

Naruto finally managed to suppress the urge to laugh. "It's funny because I haven't eaten food for... oh, about five years now? It's so hard to tell the time." He mused.

"Y-You don't e-eat?" Sakura stuttered, eyes wide.

Naruto glanced over at her, fighting a grin. "Oh, I eat. Just not food."

Sasuke frowned angrily at him. "If you can eat it, it's food, dumbass."

Snorting at the statement, Naruto wondered how Sasuke would react to being told to eat what he ate. He might even take on that entertaining shade of green that that one particular ANBU had.

"Even so, I can't eat this." The blond admitted to his potential teammates.

Sasuke glared at him. "A ninja can't be picky."

"I'm not a ninja." Naruto calmly pointed out. "I'm just a monster." He grinned predatorily. "And I only drink blood."

He could hear Sakura swallowing heavily at that, but Sasuke didn't look impressed.

"What is that, some kind of bloodline?" He asked.

Naruto tilted his head in thought. "Something like that, I guess."

"Then you're a ninja." He stated resolutely. "Only ninja have bloodlines."

Naruto felt his amusement slip away a bit in exasperation. "You don't honestly believe that the Hokage didn't try that argument, did you? I know what I am." Then ignoring whatever words the Uchiha might try next, he gave the girl the lunchbox. "There are two bells. Work hard you two, I don't mind going back to my cage for another decade." And with that said he walked off, returning to the shade underneath the tree.

XXX

Kakashi sighed as Naruto once again abandoned his teammates to their own ventures, in order to keep out of the sun.

He'd been explicitly told of the importance of this particular team, and he'd understood it even before then. The last loyal Uchiha, the smartest girl in the current batch of students, and the un-aging Jinchuuriki. All three were of importance to the Village. The boys more so than the girl perhaps, but she was nonetheless important.

Of course, he also understood perfectly why none of them would work together. Sasuke would consider joining forces with most anyone as a way of hindering his own progress, and had besides that a trauma-related phobia for commitment as a result of his brother's betrayal. Sakura was... a fangirl, to put it bluntly, and was despite her intelligence likely in dire need of seeing the horrors of the real world in order to learn that it wasn't all fun and games. And Naruto... Naruto was Naruto.

He'd been away on an important mission at the time, and had as such not been there to watch over his sensei's son. And when he'd returned... he'd found a child locked inside of the deepest reaches of Konoha's dungeons, a child that looked back up at him with crimson eyes and a sadistic smile with far too many sharp teeth. Sharp, _blood-stained_ teeth.

The sight still gave him nightmares actually. Naruto had always been such a sweet kid, a little obstinate, a little too happy to catch people's attention and make them see _him_ instead of whatever it was that caused them to gloss over or glare at 'him'. And then he'd suddenly not been that kid anymore, he'd grown up in an instant, and the only thing that had come out of it was a blood-thirsty monster who found great amusement in the pain of others.

There'd been several attempts from the civilians to have Naruto executed, both for what he'd done to his attackers – who were often friends or family to the loudest of them – and because he was so clearly not human. That he wasn't even pretending to be human, like most of Konoha's jounin did in an attempt to keep themselves sane.

But Naruto had defended himself from an attempt on his life, which cleared him of all charges, even if the law-writers themselves would've shifted uncomfortably in their seats at the sheer brutality of it all. And he liked the Sandaime, as much as the Naruto-of-now liked anyone, meaning that he wouldn't be turned against Konohagakure. In fact, from the times that he'd encountered the boy-turned-monster, he'd say that Naruto's greatest motivator in his actions were his boredom, and his insane ability to entertain himself whilst doing nothing at all.

Naruto would fight for Konohagakure if given the opportunity, of that there was no doubt. But the question was that if he would protect people for Konoha's sake, or if he'd simply leave an endless swathe of blood and destruction in his path as he slaughtered everyone who stood in the way of his objective.

Personally, Kakashi thought that he could be convinced to protect, but that they would need some manner of 'carrot' to keep the boy in line. The problem being, understandably, that they couldn't figure out anything that the boy wanted. He was happy staying locked inside a dark prison-cell for half-a-decade, he was perfectly fine with not being fed, he just... sat there, for hours upon hours upon days upon weeks upon years, barely moving. Hell, he didn't even breathe, they'd sent people to check up on him every morning to make him blink at them, so that they knew that he was still alive. Or well... as alive as Naruto ever was nowadays.

No, they'd been hoping that his tour under open air would've somehow provided them with a carrot to dangle in front of his face, but all they'd gotten was a disinclination towards the sun, and his apparent fascination with counting things that were seemingly endless as a way to pass the time.

The fact that Naruto had abandoned the test, making it pointless to have the 'two bells only' for his three-man team in order to split them up, meant that if you squinted and was both deaf and had really bad eyesight, you could say that he'd technically beaten the test. Only, Kakashi still had a perfectly functioning eye, and Naruto quite obviously couldn't care less about if his teammates lived or died.

Still... how was he supposed to deal with this? How was he supposed to motivate Naruto into joining forces with the other two?

XXX

Naruto stared at the jounin in confusion.

Then he turned back to the orange-covered book that the man had promptly pressed into his hands.

"Well, I wouldn't want it to get damaged if the little ones got lucky, and since you're not participating..." The man trialed off, smiling cheerfully down at the boy.

Naruto wondered briefly if he wasn't perhaps mistaken and that the ANBU who'd kneeled so wretchedly before him on that day so many years ago, was actually someone completely different. Then he shrugged, and opened the book.

Counting endless things could ease the boredom, but it wasn't like he couldn't find entertainment elsewhere, and the jounin had disappeared to play with his 'teammates' so Naruto felt fairly convinced that there was no issue associated with opening and reading the book.

XXX

Kakashi grinned with evil smugness at the sight of the blond opening the book and beginning to read. Even if it wouldn't motivate the boy into helping his teammates, even if it wouldn't serve to be a carrot worthy of being used, the idea of corrupting his sensei's son with Jiraiya's books was... kind of delightedly spiteful.

_Take that Kushina! That's for trying to give me a haircut! Mwahahaha!_

… Okay, so maybe he wasn't even remotely sane himself, but he was a jounin. Insanity kind of came with the territory.

XXX

It took Naruto fifteen minutes to realize something important.

His eyes weren't good enough to read a book like this in the dark of his cell. Kakashi would most likely not be dropping by to supply him with books like these anyway. And if Naruto simply waited for Konoha's walls to come tumbling down around him as he waited into eternity, then the books would most likely all have already withered away into dust.

They would wither away and Naruto wouldn't be able to read them. He probably wouldn't even be able to finish reading this book before the end of the test.

So, Naruto did the only thing he could think of. He decided that perhaps staying outdoors meant more than simply paying his respects to the Third.

And for the first time in half-a-decade, Naruto actually decided to get motivated. He wanted to read the ending, after all.

XXX

Kakashi grinned gleefully at the three exhausted forms in front of him, mentally patting himself on the back for being awesomely brilliant even in the face of his own insanity.

"You Pass!" He told them with cheerful enthusiasm.

The three forms groaned in what could probably be interpreted as a responsive cheer of their own. If you were half-deaf and thought that the sun smelled of cheese. It was probably just exhaustion and agony.

"Meet me by the bridge tomorrow at seven! Don't be late!" He happily informed them, before disappearing off to see the Hokage about his new team.

Behind him, Naruto slowly moved his hand until he could pull something out of his pocket.

Then the latest convert to the Great Jiraiya began to read.

Because he had several hours before he lost his new reading-light and quite frankly, he wanted to see how the book would end before Kakashi returned to take it back.

XXX

D-Ranks were not appreciated by either Sakura nor Sasuke, but Naruto didn't horribly mind them. After all, reading the Icha Icha series was a lot easier when you didn't have to fight and maim people.

Besides, the blood would probably have ruined the pages.

Oh, his casualness about D-Ranks were admittedly influenced by the fact that he wasn't allowed to hunt down Tora anymore. Apparently the cat was absolutely terrified of him, in a way that seemingly convinced it that leaving the country was a good idea.

Sakura was quite disturbed by this nearly fanatical panic her young-looking teammate caused in the animal, Sasuke was annoyed at how it allowed the boy to avoid participating in those missions, and Kakashi simply took it as proof of just how much he'd failed the seven year old who'd once upon a time had blue eyes.

Naruto didn't really care either way, though he was coming to realize that some animals would actually react _opposite_ of Tora, instead hurrying up to him and trying to stalk him with a devotion that was in truth rather amusing.

Crows, bats, rats, most insects, spiders... even a few stray dogs that smelled of disease.

Once he began to think about it, it seemed like most creatures who liked him were closely related to either death or disease, or were merely the kind of creature that would give most humans nightmares. If he had to guess, it would've been that as he'd cursed and been cursed by the sun and the gods, those who'd been rejected by the same would instinctively flock to him. It wasn't a perfect explanation, but it seemed to fit well enough to work with.

So it was, that the first one to snap from the repetitive D-Ranks was Sasuke.

And suddenly they were instructed to protect a drunk old man on his journey home.

Sakura was upset about the man's insults, but put on the best false smile she was capable of and tried not to show that she was imagining the man's horrible demise. Sasuke glared at him for questioning his abilities, but didn't act on it since he was still a professional. Kakashi smiled cheerfully at him in that careless way that shows that he'd had worse clients. Naruto didn't look up from his book.

In fact, the first time Naruto looked up from his book, was when Kakashi was shredded by a chain when two missing-nin jumped out of a puddle on the road.

Sasuke didn't have time to draw a weapon, Sakura didn't have time to realize what had happened.

Tazuna stared in horror as Naruto's deranged laughter echoed through the forest, teeth like kunai tearing through the helpless victims as the monster of Konoha drank his fill of blood.

Kakashi would later use this terrifying performance to convince Tazuna that it really was in his best interest to explain exactly what was going on in Wave. Sakura used that time to try to fully empty her stomach, whilst Sasuke made sure to put Kakashi between Naruto and himself.

Naruto, once he'd finished feeding, merely pulled out the book that he'd been so engrossed in and continued to read.

He might not be able to use his full power underneath the sun, but that wouldn't keep him from tearing out someone's throat with his teeth, or ripping off their arms and beating them with them. It just really proved that he was a killer and not a fighter. He couldn't out-fight most anyone, but he could kill hundreds without issue.

XXX

"Duck!" And, following his own orders, Kakashi threw himself and their client to the ground.

Naruto looked up from his book as a sword passed over his head before imbedding itself in a nearby tree. That was new.

Then a man appeared on top of it, leaking Killing Intent as he began to explain to them just how futile the struggles of their unbloodied selves were against someone as merciless as himself. Naruto found his lips pulling back into a toothy smile. He liked this guy.

The mist thickened, proving itself to be some manner of technique on the enemy nin's behalf, causing Naruto to grin even wider. A technique for blocking out the sun. What wonders would they think of next?

And then the man began to whisper into their ears, naming each and every vital part in the human body, projecting his Killing Intent heavily enough to make the Uchiha tremble uncontrollably.

Naruto started chuckling. He couldn't help it. This was too exciting. The taste of the nin's bloodthirst lingering in the air like a solid thing, tingling wonderfully.

"Oh, the child already snapped?" The disembodied voice mused mockingly.

In response, Kakashi's eye widened. "Sasuke, Sakura, Tazuna; whatever you do, _don't move_." He intoned in a strangled voice. "There's no _sun_."

The genin and the bridge-builder would most likely have been confused by that statement, if they hadn't been so very busy trying to breathe underneath Zabuza's Killing Intent.

Naruto's chuckling turned into deranged laughter. "Oh this is _wonderful_!" He finally declared with wild eyes, pulling off his sunglasses. "Releasing all stops! I _want your blood Zabuza!_"

Then he let go of everything. He let go of all of the amusement he felt for humanity's foolishness, letting it turn into his desire to massacre everything that breathed, to sink his teeth into their flesh and bathe in their blood. And he let go of the shape that he'd adapted to wearing in an effort to keep the sun from being a bother, inverting his flesh into something out of a madman's nightmares.

A tendril of incarnated nightmares shot out in the direction from which he smelled his prey, his laughter echoing bizarrely from inside his throat as monsters began to crawl out of the blackish crimson blight on the face of the world that was 'Naruto'.

"What the hell?!" Zabuza's startled voice responded from somewhere inside of the mist. "A bloodline?!"

The rest of the fight was a nightmarish blur to his teammates, who'd thought that he was merely a crazy person who drank blood and could kill people with his teeth. Because whilst they hadn't really gotten used to _that_ level of horror yet, they could imagine coming to terms with it in due time.

A Naruto that was unrestricted by the sun however... it was-... there just weren't words for how utterly terrifying such a thing was.

Finally, another nin interfered, a mask covering its face as it tried to block the abominations crawling up out of Naruto's 'body'. Because whilst he hadn't been allowed to eat humans, he'd been left alone with hundreds of animals over the last month, and they were always happy to come out to play.

Despite the dedication of the masked nin, Zabuza was the one who died first.

And when Naruto with a wicked grin decided to torture the human by showing them just what he'd done to the man they'd tried to protect, he dragged out Zabuza's flesh from his 'body' and used it to continue toying with the young girl who was apparently named 'Haku' according to Zabuza's memories.

"Zabuza-sama?" The young girl stared in horror at what her master had become.

"Yes." Her master's flesh answered her, Naruto's twisted amusement leaking through the distorted voice.

The young girl hesitated, not entirely sure what to do, before seemingly coming to a realization.

"I see. If you are Zabuza-sama, then I'm your tool." She nodded, staring up at the shape that was once a man in front of her.

Naruto blinked, curiously startled by the sudden admission.

But then, Haku was Zabuza's, and if Zabuza still existed then she would follow him even to the depths of hell itself. Such was her dedication to her master.

Something stirred underneath Naruto's cruel humor, a... both pleasant and unpleasant sensation. And so Zabuza walked forward until he could remove Haku's mask with his cold dead fingers.

It was interesting to see the absolute dedication in the girl's eyes, to know that she would follow and kill for the little piece of her master that lingered with Naruto.

Eyes glowing crimson, Zabuza removed the bandages covering his mouth, and pulled the young girl into a hug. And as his fangs pierced her jugular, Naruto was amused to hear the girl moan her master's name in what could only be described as victorious lust.

Zabuza would've been appalled, because he saw her as much as a daughter as a student and tool, but Naruto again felt that pleasant unpleasantness stir within him as he drank the girl's blood.

The _virgin_ girl's blood.

And then he knew, suddenly and instinctively like he knew so many other things, that he was not alone in his eternity, and that Zabuza had been replaced by another 'master' inside of Haku's mind.

It was comforting, in a peculiar way.

XXX

Team 7's entrance into Wave was... strange.

Naruto – still looking seven years of age – carrying an either dead or unconscious older girl in his arms with an ease that looked rather ridiculous due to their size-difference, with Kakashi reading porn, and Sakura and Tazuna both hiding behind Sasuke, who in turn was hiding behind Kakashi. The reason was simple; Team 7 might've been trained to become ninja, but they didn't have a lot of experience with the horrors of the world, and especially not with the horrors of their teammate.

Thus, Kakashi was doing shielding-duty between his students, and hiding his own discomfort of Naruto's actions behind Jiraiya's books.

He'd always known that Naruto liked to kill things, that killing things seemed to amuse him, and he'd been briefed on just what kind of power truly lurked underneath the blond's unassuming exterior. Understanding and seeing were two very different things though, and he'd never seen Naruto... _play_ with the flesh of the dead like that.

The fact that he'd then seemingly decided that he wanted a pet kunoichi only to kill her by biting through her neck and then pick up her corpse and wander away? Kakashi was both horrified and confused by his actions.

Thankfully, they weren't especially far from Tazuna's house, and soon found themselves in an area where they could drop Naruto and his 'friend' off in a room where they didn't need to pay attention to him.

Tsunami did ask why the youngest of them all was the one carrying the body of the injured person, and was rewarded with Kakashi's falsely cheerful answer that that was Naruto's private business and he could explain it to her if he wanted to.

Sakura didn't eat any of the food put in front of her, in much the same way that Tazuna tried to drink every drop of alcohol he could get his hands on, whilst Sasuke simply glared at a wall and refused to move.

Kakashi didn't really blame them, because there was a reason that the battle-hardened ANBU considered visiting Naruto in his cell as something of a hazing mission. Not even the Root operatives came back from those meetings with an appetite.

XXX

Naruto didn't move from the room that had hastily been dubbed the only-for-Naruto-room for nearly a week, causing Tsunami to worry about his and the girl's health until Kakashi had interfered by explaining that he was just people-shy and that he would be fine as far as resources were concerned for about a month.

Whilst Naruto hid from the sun with a book, Kakashi decided to distract his teammates from their horror by some extensive training. Training that he in hindsight probably should've forced upon them at an earlier point in time.

Only... when Naruto finally emerged from the room he'd secluded himself in, he didn't emerge alone.

Haku was quickly introduced to the rest of the household, and was from Tsunami immediately mistaken for Naruto's older sister on behalf of her red eyes. The same red eyes that her 'brother' had.

Several mouths opened to dismiss this claim, but Haku only smiled happily and told the older woman that she was absolutely correct, and that her little brother was really protective of his family.

By the time Tsunami and Haku had become good friends, everyone who knew just what Naruto was, decided that leaving the house for long periods of time – so that they wouldn't be forced to watch as the insane farce continued on – was a really good idea.

Of course, then Tazuna realized that he was leaving _those things_ alone with his family, and hurriedly decided that perhaps they should rotate the usual guard-schedule.

Even Sasuke showed some surprised respect for the drunkard who was willing to spend time with the red-eyed duo in an effort to keep his family safe.

And so it was, that when Gato finally grew sick and tired of waiting for Zabuza and his apprentice to finish the job and sent an army of mercenaries against the bridge, that the ones who intercepted them was Naruto and his... 'servant'.

Tazuna scampered off the bridge with the hurry of a man fleeing from the gates of hell, dragging with him those who'd stayed to work beside him, as mist began to cover the ground from the sun's rays.

The event would be remembered in Wave's history by all who'd survived it as one of the most terrifyingly revolting things they'd ever heard. Hundreds of voices crying out for mercy, and two inhuman voices laughing with mad glee as they didn't even stop to consider granting it.

When the mist finally dispersed and the bridge lay clear to sight once again, the only thing left from the army was shredded flesh, and one perfectly intact head. Gato's head rested on top of a pile of what remained of his underlings, as Naruto and Haku wandered off to relax in the still somewhat misty shade underneath a nearby tree.

By then, Haku's clothes had all turned a blotched crimson red.

XXX

**A/n: Though I like the idea of an Alucard!Naruto, I have no idea where the plot would go, seeing as how the damn Icha Icha series was the only way I could find to motivate him into actually doing something.**


End file.
